Demon Summoning 101
by FluffyGlitterPantsDragon
Summary: Mazikeen is 'accidentally' summoned from her universe, where demons manifest very differently. A rescue operation from her home plane gets underway. The Winchesters now have more crap to deal with. Cas is moderately helpful. This takes place somewhere in SPN/4 and Lucifer/1.5. Snark and humor. No Destiel.
1. Rift

**Author Notes - Thanks to everyone who is following this and has left a review - all of you are amazing and awesome. Ido plan on finishing this - since I started writing fanfic, I feel like I've improved a lot, and started writing longer chapters on other stories - the new chapters on this one will probably gradually get longer, so I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies in length from chapter to chapter. The original chapters are being tweaked for editing and grammar, but not overall plot. Thanks again. ***

Someone screwed up.

An incredibly angry black woman sat in the circle of red paint, intersected with more red lines and other archaic symbols that denoted a supernatural containment trap. Silent, murderous rage emanated from her and it hadn't cooled in the time she'd been here already. Low, dusty light through the dirty windows highlighted the center of the room, and her, as if they planned it that way.

The fact that she was pissed wasn't weird. The fact that she was there at all was.

The brown-robe bedecked leader grumbled. "I don't understand. Demons are supposed to possess one of us. There's should be all this black smoke or something."

A wheedling voice volunteered, "At least half of the set-up worked. She's stuck in the circle. Let me see your book."

Printed sheets exchanged hands, in a manila folder.

The second voice sounded irritable. "What the hell this?"

"... I got it off the internet."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"The trap part worked, didn't it?"

"Well, thank God for small favors."

The _demon?_ Wore the kind of clothing that suggested she was on her way to a nightclub. Or a dominatrix convention. All black leather with silver accents and her black hair back in a high, tight ponytail. She one-handedly flipped a wickedly curved knife that looked scary as hell. It glinted silver and black with a feather pattern when it caught the dim light. A matching second knife was embedded in the far wall. She wouldn't throw her reserved one if she couldn't get to it.

Probably.

It was sheer luck she missed with the first, probably some short-lived after-effect from the summoning. None of the brown clad figures had moved for the evil thing buried half to the hilt in the basement wall.

Between her stilettos and rough floor lay an unmoving Paul. Who had wet himself. She capitalized on him being a bargaining chip and refrained from doing severe damage to him. Yet.

He had stepped inside the trap lines when the woman appeared out of thin air and collapsed on the floor. It seemed like a good idea, since they weren't expecting anything that remotely looked like a living being of any kind. She looked up and she wasn't human - her face flashed into a ruined half-mask that proved she wasn't with one dark eye and one milky white. Paul ran forward, bearing a short, broken two by four. It was a brave but useless move in an attempt to deal with whatever it was they brought here.

Reacting with otherworldly reflexes, she had been thrown back by the lines of the trap when she tried to leap out of it. So, some of the rules applied, just not all of them, maybe. She seemed to be somewhat aware of how the thing worked or what it was since the first words out of her mouth (in English) were "I'm a demon, not the Devil!" followed by a verbal river of profanity in multiple languages. They were guessing.

Her face calmed into that of a human woman as she assessed her situation. She may or may not be a demon, but she wasn't making deals in any case.

"You got the wrong underworld resident for 'deals'. And when he turns up, he will have your guts for garlands. And I'm going to help him. If you're all very lucky, he'll stand back and let me eviscerate all of you myself."

Luck was moderately on their side at this point - she didn't know that she could use Paul as a living meat bridge to break the lines and get out. She didn't know how the rules worked in this world, much less that she was in the wrong one.

Unfortunately for them, they didn't exactly know that themselves, being idiot college students who thought it'd be fun to summon a demon and make a deal for better grades.

She adjusted her seat, occasionally testing the circular boundary of the Trap. "Which of you assholes is responsible for this?"

As a unit, they looked back at Steve, who shuffled through sheets of loose printouts. This was his idea. Steve was grouchy. "I'm telling you, I've seen this done. This isn't how it works. She was supposed to possess me so we can make a deal. Not..." He waved uselessly. "Apparate."

And appear she had, whole cloth.

"Yeah, and I'm sure if whatever we were trying to summon had shown up and been trapped, it would have been as happy as she is now."

Steve and the others glowered at each other.

There was no way in hell any of them were going to break the painted Devil's Trap lines.

"Now what?"

Steve pulled a cell phone out from under his Halloween store cloak.

The woman's eyes ratcheted onto him. "Who ya gonna call, Ghostbusters?"

He blinked back at her and walked out of the room, heading up crumbling concrete stairs, punching numbers angrily. Stabbing a flat screen phone wasn't nearly as satisfying as something with buttons. It rang three times. "Harry? Are you there?"

" _Hello! Thanks for calling (music intro) GHOSTFACERS. You've reached us either after hours, or no one is available to take your call right now. Please call back, or leave a message in one of the following boxes. For suspected hauntings, press 1. For spectral or other non-body attacks or sightings, press 2. For solid being sightings such as werewolves or vampires, press 3. If you believe you have seen a zombie or other undead, press 4. For possible demonic possession or other celestial activities, press 5. In the unlikely event of an apocalypse, do not expect returned calls."_

Steve aggressively stabbed '5' "HARRY. Call me back. I have a... Demon problem. She's not going to keep."

* * *

"'Lo" Dean picked up. They were driving somewhere headed north. Dying notes of "The Unforgiven" leaked from the car speakers and Sam attempted to doze in the passenger seat. Dean clicked off the radio.

Cas was on the other end. "There's been a plane shift."

 _Well, that made as much sense as anything else Cas ever said._ He handed the phone over to Sam. "Hey Sammy, find out what the hell Cas wants. English would be helpful."

Sam sat up and took it, brushing back long bangs, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "How's that?"

Castiel gave a long-suffering sigh. "There's been a plane shift."

Sam and Dean exchanged a side-eye.

Sam carefully asked, "Meaning what?"

"Astral. Probably infernal. It's somewhere west of your current location. Do you have a diviner you can call to pinpoint something like that?"

"Maybe. She's in the wrong direction. There are west coast hunters Bobby can call, if you want us to give him a ring."

Dean became more interested in the conversation. Sam switched the phone to speaker.

Cas continued, "You're better equipped to deal with it."

"Get to the point. Demons? Hellhounds? What?"

"More like the fabric of reality."

"Well, that sounds awesome." Dean quipped.

Dean could easily picture Castiel's 'lack of amusement face' "...Why does that sound 'awesome'? This is not a good situation."

"It never is, Cas."

Sam picked up their dad's journal, preparing to leaf through it. "What are we looking for exactly?"

"I don't know. Rifts aren't common, and they don't usually require your kind of tend to be localized and short-lived. This one feels different."

"Apocalypse?"

"I don't think it's directly related."

"What if you had to guess?"

"Our apocalypse _could_ be bleeding over into somewhere else. Or making our dimensional walls thinner."

Dean sighed. "Okay. I guess I can see how that does make it our problem."

"That's what I said."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "Wait, 'Our' apocalypse? Is there more than one?"

"Not currently."

"Okay. Is that going to be an issue for us? Is there a-, what, alternate reality that's going to have one?"

"Not anytime soon." Cas sounded irritated. "We're getting off subject. The source of the plane shift, I believe, is not currently undergoing apocalypse. 'Our' timetable was pushed up by Dean. It wasn't supposed to happen yet, if you remember."

"How do we fix this? Why can't the 'source' fix it?"

"Depends on what came through. If it was an angel or something of equally high power, they should be able to go back on their own."

"And if it wasn't?"

"If we're dealing with an infernal rip, we'll have to put them back ourselves. If they could go back on their own, they would have. Someone else has to step in."

"Okay, fantastic."

"I fail to see-"

"Cas."

The angel huffed. "Should be as simple as locating the rift and sending them back through. Rifts usually close on their own after the denizen is returned to their home plane of existence."

"And you can't handle this yourself, Cas? This is going to be pretty out of the way if you're right. And you are kind of angelic yourself."

"Let's say I have a very bad feeling about this."

Sam snorted. "Okay Han Solo."

Dean smirked.

"..."

"..."

"My name is Castiel, Sam."

"Nevermind. I guess we head 'west.' We'll make some calls to Bobby and see if he can help out."


	2. Now What?

"Why did you drag me over here, Lucifer?" After more than five years of occasional interaction on earth, Amenadiel still hadn't developed a sense of humor. It was mid-day at Lux, so whatever Lucifer needed wasn't club related.

"Thanks for making time for me. See what I did there?" The ex-King of Hell smirked at his own little joke.

His brother either ignored the pun or didn't get it. "I came over at your request. I'm leaving if you don't make clear why I'm here."

Lucifer gestured expansively with his glass. "I need your wings, brother."

His visitor glowered. "I seem to remember that you hated yours so much you cut them off."

Amenadiel's wings were not currently visible. Had they been, the pinions would have been clamped down tightly in a defensive posture.

Lucifer rolled his eyes dramatically from where he leaned on his penthouse bar. "Fine. I need you to backpack me around then. Honestly, Amenadiel, I pegged you for more of a giver. Whiskey?" he added, offering a tumbler of something that was probably expensive.

He gave a flat stare. "I'm not flying you anywhere." the tone of his voice added _ever_. "Purchase a ticket on one of those human built contraptions if you need to get somewhere so badly."

Lucifer's dark eyes regarded his brother with vague disappointment. "Astrally, not physically. I have no desire to be swept up in your arms and carried into the sky like a human infant spawn. You were never the best flyer among us." He downed his glass.

"Then, you want me to take you back to hell now?" The stare had an edge of skepticism. He looked around like he was about to be jumped.

"Don't be ridiculous." Lucifer looked up at the ceiling as if it had answers. His face tensed, dropping his perpetual smarmy attitude. "I can't find Maze. I need help. I've exhausted every other route I can think of." He swirled the melting ice cubes in his glass.

"That can't be that unusual. She can't have gone far, she wouldn't."

"At all. She's not answering her phone. The Detective made herself useful and found it, abandoned outside a nearby coffee house, like she'd set it down and just walked away. No one has seen her, no one saw her taken." He paused. "The reason I called you in particular though, is that I don't... _feel_ Maze."

Amenadiel raised one eyebrow.

"You know what I mean. She can't nip off to hell on her own. I'm sure she's not anywhere on this earthly firmament, either. She certainly isn't in the Silver City."

Lucifer looked worried. About Maze. Who was damn good at handling herself on her own.

"Do you want me to check Hell just to be sure?" Amenadiel asked, shifting uneasily.

"Dad, no. I don't think she's anywhere in the Pit. She's, not 'here.'" He waved ineffectually around him, as if to suggest the universe.

The non-fallen angel paused as a thought occurred to him. "She hasn't been killed?"

"No, I'd know. Even if I weren't sure, I'd still be able to 'find' her. If I still had my wings, I'd be able to jot off and look around on my own. The damn things were useful once in a while." He scowled. "I think she was taken."

"Someone kidnapped a demon?"

"I'm sure of it."

"And I can't just look around for you? Without 'backpacking' you to another plane with me?"

"Unless you can sense her without me, you won't be able to find her. Got any demon-radar that I don't know about?"

Amenadiel looked resigned to his fate. "No. Can you narrow down where she might be?"

"I've been thinking. It has to be one of the planes where magic exists. Powerful enough to nab a demon from this one. I've been to other Earths, just for a looksy, mind. Most of them are even less interesting than this one. There are a handful that have magic powerful enough to be dangerous to both themselves and Celestials."

He looked uneasy. "Okay, great, tell me how to get there, and I'll check around."

"My fine-feathered friend, there's still hundreds or more to check, that I even know of. By the time you're back, the earth will be ash. With me aboard, we can spend a fraction of a second checking each."

"Hundreds are 'a handful'?"

"Relatively speaking."

"I suppose. Since these planes are 'dangerous' and you can't get back home on your own, I guess you expect me to stick with you once we find the right one."

"You're learning to extrapolate! Excellent."

Amenadiel wasn't sure if this was a compliment or an insult, so he let it pass. "When do we get started?"

Lucifer extended his long arms outward, glass in one hand and bottle in the other.

"We are not taking the booze with us."

"Some booze."

"Luci..."

"Fine." He poured the rest of the bottle down his throat, set the glass down and came over, grabbing his suit coat from a chair. "All aboard!"

The elder brother rolled his eyes.

"What, I was sure you weren't going to say it. Were you?"

With a bit of displaced air, Amenadiel unfolded his silvery grey wings. They were not nearly as large or as beautiful as Lucifer's had been, but they were indeed better than nothing. And more importantly, they were a ticket to any other plane in existence.

"You don't need anything else?"

Lucifer patted his jacket pockets. "If anything goes awry, we'll pop back. Oh, good call, brother." He extracted his flask and quickly refilled it from the apartment bar.

"Are you done?"

Lucifer wound around behind his brother, threading his long fingers into soft feathers the color of smoke. Amenadiel sank down for a second, a sound of contentment escaping unguarded. "Sorry." Lucifer shifted his hands higher to grasp the bony parts of the wings. "Better?"

"You did that on purpose."

"Everything I do is on purpose."

"Let's get this over with. You owe me a deal for agreeing to this."

"Nonsense. You're doing this out of brotherly love for me. One should never agree to favors before setting terms."

Amenadiel looked back, fluffing his wings.

"You want her back home safe and sound as much as I do."

"I doubt that. Watch your fingers."

* * *

Half a day was gone. Paul was either asleep or faking it, or had just passed out from exhausted terror.

The demon woman hadn't spoken in hours. She'd barely blinked.

She hadn't just puffed away either.

The other cult members left, or more accurately, fled.

She and Steve looked at one another.

The phone rang. Steve snapped it up in relief. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Harry."

"Where have you been, man?"

"I tried calling you earlier, are you in a basement or something?"

Oh. Right.

"Nevermind. What can you tell me about demons?"

The woman smirked and stood up, boot heels to either side of the miserable Paul. Steve hurriedly backed away.

Harry was unaware of the situation. "Uh. Don't mess with them?"

She barked a laugh. Apparently, super-sensitive hearing was on the 'demon powers' list.

"What was that?"

Steve groaned. "The demon."

"You're kidding, right? Dude, LEAVE."

"She's trapped. In a circle." Steve eyed his friend. "And she's got Paul in there with her. I can't just leave him." Yet.

"Okay…"

"Harry?"

"If he's not dead yet, he will be. If she's a demon, I don't know why he's still alive."

"That's the thing; she's not in a body. She's a different kind of demon."

"In a what?"

"You do know how demons work right? Possession?"

"...Sure, yes."

"She's in her OWN body. No possession."

"That uh, doesn't sound like a demon."

Paul groaned and rolled over. One hand flopped outside the circle.

Her face changed slightly.

"Harry, how do I, I dunno, un-summon her?"

"Like exorcising?"

"I don't think that'll work. She's _here_ , what do I do about it?"

"You leave, idiot. And hope she doesn't kill your idiot friend. Does she know who you are?"

"No, she hasn't seen anything but my basement."

"Steve."

"What?"

"In YOUR basement? Are you stupid?"

"Look, can you help me or not?"

Harry's sound of frustration echoed through the phone. "Look, I don't want to do this, but... I can get a hold of a couple of guys. Maybe, but only if this thing is actually a demon. And not some crazy prank. They already don't like me all that much, and I it'll take a few calls and a few favors."

Steve walked further away, his back to the demon and toward the knife in the wall.

She leaned forward, then abruptly froze. She looked down.

She was over the line of the circle.

Her lips turned up on one side. " _Hey!_ Steve."

"What do you-"

His sentence was cut off by the other knife burying itself in his shoulder, followed by her, boots first and breathing down his neck. He screamed.

She took the phone. "Hello, _Harry_ , I'm the most badass demon there is, and second to Lucifer himself. Call anyone you like." She hung up, kicking Steve. "Thanks for the phone."

She leaned down and yanked her knife out of His shoulder, wrenching another scream from him. It was delicious. Not even putting her shoulder into it, she pulled the dagger's twin from the wall and went outside.


	3. Converging lines

It was evening. Maze stalked down a random sidewalk in her stiletto boots. Being a demon had advantages when it came to pain tolerance. The stars in the darkening sky looked 'right' for where she should be if she were still in or near L.A. Not sure which side she was on, but being in the same state was a good start, even for California.

She held her leather vest up to her nose and sniffed it. Not out long, either then. As an afterthought, she licked the blood on her blade. Human. Low iron. She should have grabbed something to clean the blade with, but she wasn't working with a clear head.

Lucifer would find out who kidnapped her, and how. The assholes in the cheap polyester robes clearly had no idea what they were doing, but the Trap worked like nothing actually should. Humans have tried such things from time to time, but it really had been more of an issue during more 'Biblical' times.

She didn't remember being attacked. She had lost consciousness for no reason she could isolate. Thinking back, it felt like strings being cut and she'd gone boneless from standing or walking. What happened? Did she hit the ground? She thought not, until hitting the circle. It was like she fell through the earth itself.

It had to have been a hell of a drug to knock her on her ass like that. No pun intended.

Idiot kids. Someone else had to have been involved. No one kidnaps a demon.

 _Lucifer should have shown up by now.  
_  
She was getting angrier by the second, then noticed she clutched the stolen phone so hard she cracked the screen.

She had a phone. Idiot child or not, it was locked for general use, but she could still dial out. If only she hadn't dropped her own damn phone. Human technology, though addictive, had its uses.

Maze pulled numbers from memory. Lucifer's personal line rang a couple of times before picking up.

"Hello?" An unfamiliar woman's voice answered.

"Put Lucifer on!"

"The fuck?..." _click._

Repeated attempts resulted in immediate hang-ups, followed by being blocked. It was possible she got a digit wrong, but that was extremely unlikely.

She tried Lux's primary number.

" _Phil's Brother Pizza_. Would you like to try our new habanero-garlic crust? It's hotter than Hell!" It was someone she didn't remotely recognize. Sounded like a scruffy kid whose voice was still cracking.

Maze growled. "This is not funny."

"I'm sorry?"

"Whoever is responsible for this is going to die."

"..." _Click._

What the hell?

Desperate times. She dialed LAPD's office line. If this was the most ridiculous practical joke in history, someone was going to pay for it if she had to pull out their reproductive organs through their throat.

A woman picked up."Hi, you've reached-"

"I need to speak with Detective Decker or Detective Espinoza."

"I.. I don't think we have a Decker, but Espinoza may be available. Who is calling?"

"This is Maze. Can you please just put me through to Detective Dan Espinoza?" Every word came through gritted teeth.

The woman sounded like she was at the end of a very long day. "You know what? Okay, sure, one second."

 _FINALLY.  
_  
A short wait later, "Detective Espinoza."

"DAN! Please tell me you know what in seven hells is going on with Lucifer. Is Chloe there?"

"... Who the hell is this?"

She counted to three. "It's Mazikeen. _You idiot._ "

"Is someone putting you up to this?" Dan sounded genuinely confused. "Do I know you?"

Maze continued to stomp down the sidewalk, trying to keep what was left of her wits which were scattering like sheep on fire. " _Lucifer's_ number isn't working. Neither is the club, and I don't know where I am, and I'm about to eviscerate the next human who looks at me funny, which is going to happen soon."

The other line paused like he was muffling the pickup, "Oh, uh. Mah-za-keen. _Riiiiiiight_. Why don't you tell me what street you're on? Are you looking for 'Lucifer'? As in Satan? Or is that an alias?"

"You know damn well that I'm talking about Satan. He's been working with you and Chloe for the last few months, who knows why. You know, _Lucifer Bloody Morningstar._ " She threw in the ridiculous British accent on the name.

"Chloe?"

Maze stopped and squinted at the phone. It certainly sounded like Dan. "Where's Decker?"

"Who?"

"Your ex-wife?"

"I don't have an ex-wife. I have a current wife."

She was going to strangle all of them. Slowly. With dull barbed wire. With a current running through it. " .Chloe."

"My wife's name isn't Chloe." Shuffling sounds. "You're looking for a... Chloe Decker?" It sounded like he wasn't sure about his own ex's name. Paper and pen scratching in the background, followed by a rip.

This was too weird.

"Maz-i-keen? Are you uh... demanding anything?"

She spits out her next words. "I'm demanding to find my boss, but that doesn't seem to be happening."

"I mean, why did you call me? The police? Is there a hostage situation?"

"I'll call back later, Detective Douche."

"Uh. Okay then. Uh, do you need my personal line?"

He gave no reaction to Lucifer's pet name for him.

"Apparently not." She hung up.

Hell to pay wasn't entirely covering the situation.

The phone wasn't allowing her access to the internet, just the number keypad. She considered throwing it, but it might come in handy later.

At this point, the only thing she needed to do was go to Lux and find out what in the name of Lucifer's Dad was going on.

* * *

Bobby picked up on the second ring, "Yeah?"

"Hello to you too, Bobby."

Dean and Sam had stopped at an all-night diner on the drive through another dry, dusty state. Dean was up and taking a break from his greasy cheeseburger and limp fries.

Sam was picking at his 'salad' plate, which consisted of dubious lettuce, slightly less than ripe tomato slices and a whole piece of 'grilled' chicken on top. The chicken was hot, and slowly disintegrating whatever might be under it. And may or may not have included a slice of American cheese.

"Hey, I was gonna call you about a lead." Per usual, Bobby sounded like he was pulling another all-nighter on research. He rarely called unprompted.

"Great, two birds and all that. Look, we're headed 'west,' per our friendly neighborhood angel. We need someone who can divine us a better idea of where to go, seeing as how stupid large California is."

"Lucky then, since _my_ hotspot is in or near Los Angeles."

"How's that?"

"Okay, you aren't going to like this."

"I never do."

"You 'member those idjit kids with the show?"

Dean dropped his face in his hand. "Ghost-something? The ones we tried to convince to quit their day jobs and go find real day jobs?"

"Yeah. One of 'em is looking for you boys. Said they have a loose demon, but it ain't in a vessel."

Dean wandered back to their table quickly. Sam looked up, miserably pulling cooked green lettuce strips out from under his chicken.

"A demon with no vessel?"

Sam sat up. Dean waved him out the door where they could talk on speakerphone. The diner was slow, but it didn't help to have customers overhear them.

Bobby continued, "Said it was summoned, then she went wild and stabbed his friend in the chest."

"Well, that part isn't weird."

"No mention of smoke. She doesn't have demon eyes, but she did have one white eye that went back to normal, or, she ain't a demon. She claimed to be though."

"Bobby, how much acid were they on? Or for that matter, how much are you on for taking them seriously?"

"Dean, the kid was scared shitless, and they sent me an image of the attack wound. Still not decisive. But, since you're already headed that direction, I figured you'd wanna know about it. Even if she ain't a demon, it sounds like it's still in our wheelhouse. They didn't summon 'nothin'."

"I don't suppose your friend sent a shot of the scene?"

"Kid refuses to go back in. Threatened to burn down his backyard sooner."

"Great. Did anyone else become a casualty?"

"Nah, no other injuries or bodies so far. I didn't think you'd get sentimental about those idjits."

Dean's face tightened. Of course, he felt like had to be defensive. "If we had a body we could examine it, maybe get a better idea of what we're dealing with."

"The source is sketchy, but she seemed to have been armed with fancy matching knives."

"Silver?"

"Not sure, but doubtful. Oh, you'll like this part. She was dressed 'like a hooker.'"

"Come again?"

"I'm just passin' on what I got. I need more to figure out what she could be. Had normal teeth, looked mostly human. Which narrows it down slightly more than diddly squat. Where is Golden Ticket anyway?"

Sam took the phone. "We hope Cas is doing whatever he does to find stuff like that. He'll probably mysteriously reappear when we get within range of wherever. L.A. is at least a direction. Was that where the 'demon' was summoned?"

"Yup. Oh hey, in fact, I have an address. Hang on."

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. "Like a mailing address?"

"The candle ain't exactly burning on both ends for these guys. Here-"

Apparently, 'here' was on the outskirts of L.A, but not too far from the highway.

Dean scowled. "They let a demon-thing loose in suburbia? And no one else is dead yet?"

Sam considered. "At least we can go look at their setup. Figure out what incantation they used."

Dean glanced over at his brother. "Isn't it the same for all demons?"

"According to Bobby, this thing isn't. So we need to find out what it is. Maybe we'll luck out, and it'll be a wild-goose-on-acid chase." Sam drummed his fingers on the hood of the Impala, thinking.

"Is it worth it? This thing hasn't even murdered anyone."

"Yet. Even if she turns out to be just a tripping party girl, we can point her at a rehab center."

"How about the eye?"

"Trick of the shadows, or the light. I'm not saying we ever get that lucky, but without a better description, could be a stunt for all we know. This is L.A. we're talking about. Wouldn't be the first time an extra from a horror flick got loose and scared people."

"Great. Sam and Dean, protectors of party-goers everywhere."

"At worst, we get a night to chill in L.A."

"As much fun as I know I'd have, we are never that lucky. Okay, Bobby. Lacking anything else, we'll check your 'lead' and hope it's nothing."


	4. Sam, Dean and Dan

Lucifer let go of Amenadiel. " _HERE._ "

Amenadiel flashed out of sight then came back, frowning. "What took you so long? We almost passed this one by."

"We did pass it, but I had you circle back. There are demons here, and I was thrown off a little."

Amenadiel fluffed his wings and put them away. "Does that mean there's a... You? Here too? Or me?" He added as an afterthought.

They weren't quite where they would be in 'their' L.A., So it's just as well no one saw the dismount and wing sweep. They were in the desert, the city in the distance, but not far as the angel flies.

Lucifer cocked his head. "Yes, there's a Lucifer here, but I can't be sure he's above or below. Fairly certain below. The demons and higher powers here have to inhabit human bodies. Usually by force, but not always. I think that includes him." He looked at his friend. "Angels do too, but not by forced possession."

"How do you know this world already?"

"It's what I do, Amenadiel. I drink, and I know things." Lucifer grinned.

"Seriously? _Game of Thrones_?"

"Oh, so you have been absorbing some amount of culture after all. Back when I had wings, which if you remember was for quite a much longer time, I got bored and went visiting other realms. Not all of them have 'us', but Dad seems pretty, sadly, universal."

Amenadiel shaded his eyes, looking around. "So, our kin are disembodied? Will that affect Maze?"

"These chaps are hardly 'kin.' Just. Alternates. Remember that if we have to confront any - they'll reside in human bodies, that can be broken."

Lucifer continued, "If you see black smoke, prepare for a fight. I don't know if the mechanics are interfering with Maze yet or not, but you and I seem alright. Embarrassingly, I'm only 90% sure it's even 'our' Mazikeen, but I don't have any closer hits. I'd rather not alert 'their' Lucifer that I'm about. We should find her and go."

"No arguments there."

"Now then, get those wings back out and fly us on in, dear brother."

"I told you before, I'm not carrying you anywhere."

"Come on. Time is of the essence!" Lucifer snapped his fingers. "Chop chop. Unless you want both of us to ruin our shoes."

Amenadiel glowered but wafted out his wings again. And didn't lift. He gave them another solid flap, but his feet didn't leave the ground. Stretching them to their full length, he spread them wide and drew them down hard enough to blow Lucifer's hair out of place, covering them both in dust and sand.

Lucifer dusted his suit off, grumbling. "What are you playing at?"

"Apparently, angels don't fly in this world." He kicked at a nearby rock, then fluffed out his wings to dislodge the grit he just blasted everywhere.

They looked at the five-mile walk ahead.

"Shit."

* * *

The police were there. Because of course they were.

Sam and Dean pulled up around noon after driving all night. Still no hide nor hair of Castiel yet.

There was only one cop car, meaning one or two guys and not a full-on investigation. Maybe the lack of dead bodies right now was a good thing. Less cops in their hair. No tape to cross.

The house was in a cul-de-sac, and in suburbia, not the best looking subdivision around. Old-growth trees cracked sidewalks and lawns. It was the first sunny day Sam and Dean had seen in a while. Dry woods backed the housing development, sickly and wind-blown.

A male with short cropped hair not unlike Dean's own but longer on top was speaking to a confused looking house-coated woman on the porch. He turned and looked curiously at the arrival of the Impala. A second woman with black hair in a ponytail and a large black bag stood next to the man, shuffling her feet. She peeked over her shoulder and waved at them with gusto. The other one looked ready to head out. Both were in jeans and leather jackets.

Yes, definitely a good thing now that no one was dead. A bored cop is a cop looking to wrap up and go home. Or find trouble.

The man shook his head. The woman in the doorway said something. He passed her a card, then turned, walking off the low porch and toward the Impala. Ponytail hunted around in her duffle bag for something, following. She was wearing an eye-wateringly pink shirt under the jacket.

Given the (un)popularity of the place, they should have driven past and waited for the cops to clear out. Too late now. Sammy opened the glove box and fished out two Fed ID's, handing one to Dean quickly, who pocketed it.

Sam and Dean stepped out of either side of Baby and exchanged a quick look. Dean took the lead, flipping his badge open and closed with the casual air of someone who has done it hundreds of times before. Because he has. He cleared his throat. "I'm Agent Smith, and this is my Trainee, Agent Anderson." Sam nodded.

The man with a lean, muscular build side-eyed them but didn't challenge the badges. "Hey, Detective Dan Espinoza. He glanced at his partner. This is Ella Lopez. We're just stopping by for a few minutes." The Detective maybe a few inches shy of Sam's height, with hard blue-grey eyes.

Ella reached out and pumped their hands energetically, smiling. Dean had the distinct impression she was holding back genuine joy at meeting new people. "Hey, guys! What's cookin'?"

Sam coughed. "Hopefully nothing." He responded with his 'professional' face. "Just following up on a stabbing."

Dan shifted his weight. "Yeah, they called the Feds out for this? I mean it's bizarre-wait, who got stabbed?"

The victim didn't go to a hospital. Because of course. "The guy who lives here?"

Ella piped up. "Oh! Like, mystery ghost stabbing, am I right?"

All three of them looked at her. "Ghost?" Sam prompted, unable to help himself.

"That guy, who lives here? Gone, poof! His mom says he moved out of the state, and that she hasn't even seen anything weird in the last few days. Hasn't heard from him. Definitely no stabby people." Sam caught a glimpse of what looked like a rosary in her bag.

Sam looked at her. "I'm sorry, are you a detective?"

Espinoza's face tensed. "She's our forensics lab rat. The tip was too vague to send out anyone, so I'm kind of here on my own. I didn't want to let it go without at least stopping by."

Sam and Dean invisibly relaxed. That's why the detective didn't challenge their presence.

"Head Lab Rat, thank you. Anyway, it sounded fun." The front of her shirt pink shirt had a glittering silver cat with a unicorn horn.

"Head Lab Rat. She's good at dissecting clues. And bodies." Dan looked pleased with his pun.

Ella fished out a well-used notepad, gesturing with it. "So get this, some crazy-ass woman calls, demanding to talk to Dan, of all people, and says she's looking for 'Lucifer.' How could we not at least come by and check this out? What kind of crazy person calls the police, looking for the devil?"

The brothers froze. "Say that again?" 'Trainee Anderson' asked.

Dan shrugged but shot a 'shut up' look at Ella, who completely missed or ignored it. "I'm sure it's nothing. Just some crazy woman. She said she was going to -" He looked his co-worker. "Eviscerate!" Ella chirped helpfully. "-do that, to the next 'human' she found, but nothing else has turned up since last night, and that woman in the house isn't acting like she's hiding hostages in her basement."

Ella looked at the 'agents.' "Dude, Someone walk over your graves? Both of 'em? You look like ghosts."

Dean spoke first, clearing his throat roughly. "The-she, called you? Out of the blue?" Cas would have been handy right about now. "Asking about...the devil? Prince of Darkness? King of the underworld?" He tried to say it lightly but didn't think he was succeeding.

She nodded, animated. "She stressed it, not like 'God's gonna get you' but like, called him her 'boss.' She totes sounded like she thought Dan here," She cocked her head at him, "could get 'Lucifer.'"

The boys both looked at Dan, who shrugged helplessly. "As I said, both random and weird."

The short woman looked between them. " _And_ she wanted to talk to someone who died like, 20 years ago."

Dan was looking daggers at Ella now. "She did ask for me by name, along with 'Detective Decker,' who was killed in the line of service a good long time ago. It was almost like the woman thought he had another relative who worked with us."

Sam scratched his chin. "You, don't uh, have the audio recording do you?"

"It's back at the station, but I'd rather erase it from memory."

Ella elbowed him in the side. Not gently "Right, because of the name calling?"

Dan appeared to be about to strangle his partner. "That. and everything else, yes."

She leaned over conspiratorially, "She called him 'Detective Douche.'"

Sam and Dean looked at him. "Hey, I didn't call the crazy woman, she called me!"

"I swear it sounded like she was code-wording it." Ella nodded "Like, she was expecting him to respond with 'At your service!' or 'aye-aye, captain!' or something."

Dan elbowed her back. "Or, you know, she was just, nuts. I wouldn't put much stock in anything she said." He scowled at Ella. "Ever again."

e.

Smith/Dean cleared his throat. "Well, if that's all you've got, we're going to take a quick look around, ourselves."

"Yeah, we were about to check the backyard."

 _Damn. Strikeout on lazy cops.  
_  
Ella sprang ahead like a rabbit. For a second Dean thought she was running to hide something, but a glance at Dan's face told him she was brimming with energy and he was used to her enthusiasm.

"She usually that spunky?"

"To the point that I want to lace her coffee with Benadryl some days. Hey, Smith, I didn't get your first names."

"Samuel Anderson and Dean Smith." Sam supplied. Dean gave him a look, but his brother shrugged as if to say 'it's easier this way."

"You two in town long?"

"Hopefully not."

The three men trod around to the back of the house, looking in different directions. Everything in the backyard was flat and dry, without even a swingset or garden bed to break it up.

"Is that a bomb shelter?" Ella peered down in the unkempt grass.

There was an opening into the ground several yards from the back of the house, with some of the grass trampled down around it. Concrete stairs led down. Sam kicked a small rock down the stairs. "Must be an old basement. Maybe there used to be another building here?"

Dan pulled a flashlight and started down. "You guys comin'?"

Dean tried to step in "We should go down first and check it out."

"Whatever this is, I'm seeing it through. First."

With no room for negotiation, Dan pushed the door.

* * *

Dan stepped into the room and wrinkled his nose. It was empty, with a stale feel. There was no light other than what filtered in through tiny windows up high. Everything was concrete with a few beat up rugs lying in limp piles. The on-edge FBI agents filed in behind him, with Ella squeezing past. Dan and Sam had to duck down a little to avoid scraping the low ceiling, but it wasn't much better for Dean.

Nothing jumped out at them, physically.

In the dead center of the room was a perfect circle, painted in red and intersected with a five-pointed star and strange lettering. There was a stain in the middle, and some scruffing along the edge. Loose printed papers were on the floor, along with the usual refuse that got left behind and never collected in old buildings. Dan swung his light around the documents, and he and Ella saw the blood at the same time. "Well then. I guess there was an attack."

The agents went directly to the circle. Ella squatted over the blood and got out her collection kit, along with a black light, laying everything on a clean plastic barrier first. She snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and a transparent face mask.

Dan picked up a piece of paper and turned it over. "Huh. Demon summoning? Really?"

The Agents had their heads together but whipped around to look at Dan. "What was that?" Anderson pushed back his long blond hair.

Dan, oblivious to their expressions, turned the paper toward them. "Someone got on the internet and tried to summon a demon, apparently." He was more amused than anything. There was a circle on the paper too, with instructions.

"No way." Ella grabbed up one of the other papers immediately, then looked annoyed with herself and changed gloves.

Sam held a hand out. "May I?"

Dan shrugged. "Sure." He handed it over and kept looking for anything remotely interesting. He kicked at a pile of brown cloth. Everything down here was old and crumbling, and rank.

He edged around a pile of yellowed candles burnt down to stubs. There were several. "This symbol mean anything to you guys? Someone sacrifice a virgin to Satan down here?"

Sam opened his mouth then closed it again, looking back down at the circle. Dean jumped in, "We've seen these before, but it's all hocus pocus, obviously. I mean, demons aren't real. Doesn't stop cultists from trying. Right, Sam?" he grinned painfully at the other agent.

"Uh, yeah. Attempts to summon demons are made from time to time, and. Uh, they all look _almost_ exactly like this setup." Sam sat on his heels to get a better look at the markings, comparing them with the sheet Dan handed over. "Kids try it every so often. Some groups on the internet make up stories about making 'deals with demons'. Occasionally, we come across a murder where someone blames it on a demon or ghost or whatever."

Dan walked around the circle, tapped Sam's paper. "So they got their information from the same place? On .. doing this? Whatever this is?"

Sam cocked his head, looking at Dean. "Kind of. It's a _little_ different than what we've seen."

Dean unsubtly kicked Sam in the foot. Dan missed it. Ella didn't. Sam lost his balance and nearly fell over.

Dan considered the stain in the middle. "But no one died down here?"

Dean responded, "Not last night, we think. Can't say for further back."

"How long you guys been doing this exactly?"

"Oh, you know, feels like forever. We seem to be good at these kinds of cases. Devil worship, people _think_ they see monsters, our work feels more like Scooby-Do, unmask the asshole and it turns out to be nothing spooky at all." He nodded.

Ella stood up and stored her samples. She came over with the blacklight. "Looks like someone wet the bed. This whole place is grody." She looked over the circle. "Haven't found any monsters though, huh?"

Dean shook his head, smirking. "If we had, don't you think someone would have heard about it by now?"

"That's not a negative." She observed. "I think there's more out there, ya know? These kids might have been wrong, but all this comes from somewhere. Half the world talks to God."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Trust me when I say you don't want to meet what people think they saw."

She picked up one of the discarded balls of fabric and stuffed it in a bag. A candle went into another. She spotted a fresh divot in the wall, followed it down to a small pile of mortar on the floor.

"Someone stuck a sharp object in the wall? Is that a .. ritual thing?" Ella swept a gloved hand through the dust.

Sam looked up. "Stabbing usually involves sharp objects."

She stuck her finger into the hole. "Looks hooked. Like a big claw maybe?"

Dean and Sam went back to pointing at parts of the sheet and floor to each other. Sam borrowed the blacklight and flashed it at the ceiling. Nothing up there.

They all looked at each other.

Dan made a few more notes of his own. "This is one report I do not want to file."  
He went to Ella. "You got everything you need?"

"I'm going to take some photos, but yeah. You guys want me to shoot them to you?" She directed at the agents.

Sam and Dean did that thing again. Sam came over to him and Ella. "Sure. I'll give you my private contact. My work email doesn't handle large files well." He wrote it down on Ella's notebook. "Detective, I'll give it to you too. Thanks for the offer."

Dan thought he heard scuffling behind him, but Agent Smith was only righting a candle back to standing, next to the painted circle. "Oops."


	5. Missed Communication

Maze stole new clothes more appropriate for the city in the daytime. She didn't need to be slowed down by more humans trying to proposition her. On the bright side, she snagged a few hundred in cash out of the hands of unsuspecting johns and kept going. Her knives stayed sheathed for the most part.

Lucifer had a _LOT_ to answer for. Where the hell was he?

She took a cab down the street Lux was on.

This strip was full of nightclubs, with low traffic in the middle of the day.

There was no Lux.

The sign outside their building had shining neon letters that read "Rodeo." The lines were the same, from the white stone to the spire reaching to the sky,, but there was no sexual sleekness to the place. The valet station had a purple cactus painted on it. She gaped at the building that should not be.

A creepy dude in a large trench coat stepped outside.

* * *

Dan found Ella listening to the recording again in her forensics lab. "Seriously?"

She pulled out her earphones, regarding Dan with tension in her voice. "She was so. Insistent." She sat cross-legged on a stool before a microscope. Today's shirt was pale blue-grey with various female _Star Wars_ characters exploding from the center.

He sighed. "I hope you aren't neglecting any real cases over this."

"Nooooo. Well, no murders. Nothing urgent. Come over here."

Dan scowled. "That blood better be from something interesting."  
"No. The blood looked fine, within normal ranges for the most part. Might have been from a vegan though."

"And?"

"I sifted the mortar from the hole in the wall? There's flakes of metal from it that are weird, man." She held up a glass tube with what appeared to be absolutely nothing in it.

"There's nothing in there."

"No, there is, it's just particles. I almost missed them. My mass spectrometer doesn't know what to make of them."

"So?"

"So, if it was from a knife, it should come back as steel, or something with iron and carbon in it, or even a coating or blackening chemical that you might find on some blades."

Dan cocked his head, peering through the glass tube, still not seeing anything. "Annnnnnd... It doesn't?"

"Nuh-uh. So I got to thinking, maybe we can find her if we figure out what she was looking for. Other than, you know, _Satan_. She said she couldn't reach 'the club.' It might be worth driving down to the club streets and taking a look around for her.

"You're kidding, right? This is L.A."

"What have you got going on today?"

"Really?"

"C'mon we have a mystery here. Think about it." She tried another tact, "Those knives could be an illegal import." She raised her eyebrows imploringly. "You can't be happy not knowing why she called _you_."

Dan's neck twitched. "Wait a second."

"Yeah?"

"She called me. I can check with the desk and see if can trace the number that was put through."

"Now we're talkin'." Ella hopped off her stool and pushed him out the door. "LESGO"

* * *

Sam picked up the phone on the first ring. "Cas, finally! We were about to head back home."

"Why?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Never mind, where the hell are you?"

"Downtown. I need you to meet me here. There are _forces_ incoming."

"More than one?"

"Yes. I'm at the _Rodeo_. It's the tallest nightclub building on this street, big white spire on top."

Dean leaned over. "Club? We're going to a club?"

"Yes. That's what I said."

"Cas? Why are we meeting you at a _club_?"

Cas' voice was as patient as ever, as if describing a hot dog stand. "It's the convergence point."

"Okay, yeah, but why a...club?"

"The structure itself is unimportant. It just happens to be where we need to be."

Dean threw up a hand, shooting a look at Sam. "We were already driving into town, so we should find you soon. Do we need firearms?"

"No, they wouldn't do any good, but bring blades and whatever else you want to carry. Not sure what we'll need. L.A. isn't very friendly to firearms-bearers."

Sam jotted down the club address, not without classic Sam side-eye.

* * *

Steve's phone buzzed in Maze' newly acquired light leather jacket. Even walking around in California heat, she preferred black leather. She answered, squinting at a number that might be vaguely familiar.

Maze had never rolled her eyes harder in her immortal life. "Hello, Douche."

Detective Espinoza's voice hesitated. "...Listen, I was thinking about what you said yesterday."

"Yeah, you're trying to triangulate cell towers? Just come to-" She eyed the sign hatefully. " _Rodeo_. You're my only bet at this point."

"Bet?"

She growled, and spit out, "I don't appear to be in Kansas anymore. You're the only human I can seem to reach, even if you're clueless."

"...We'll meet you there."

"We? I'm still a demon. You're still a douche. Don't make any stupid moves. Whoever you have with you may not like you after today."

"Ella? Nah, she's my one friend at the station. She probably could befriend mosquitoes."

"... "

"Maz-?"

She hung up. The befriend comment made her think of Dr. Linda. She didn't know the woman that well, but she might exist here too, wherever the fuck 'here' was. Unfortunately, she couldn't look up the good doctor's number yet either.

That Ella was coming, and knew Dan...Well, she didn't actually know what it meant. But it might mean another ally in this miserable version of earth.

Briefly, she felt a stirring. Something that felt vaguely hell-ish, but it was fleeting. Her senses were all on edge. She didn't know how to contact Hell at all without Lucifer, or if she could.

She began to think he wasn't coming.

* * *

Sam spotted Cas first. Dean did NOT want to pay for valet parking, so they were working their way up the street on foot. The sun was relentless. The novelty of a cloudless sky wore off within fifteen minutes of trudging with a duffle over a shoulder. It did remind Sam of Stanford though.

Cas saw them and didn't wave. He looked wary. To be fair, he pretty much always looked wary. He must be sweltering in the heat with that damn trench coat.

If he'd been looking the other way down the street, he would have seen the decidedly worse-for-wear pair of men coming in, bickering with each other.

The tall, almost gangly man with jet black hair wore what must have been a very nice off-black suit with a light grey button up shirt, covered in desert dust. He walked with leggy strides, his darker friend in jeans not much shorter. Both looked grumpy. They stood out from the other foot traffic, but Sam wasn't really sure why.

They pinged on Dean's hunter's instincts too. He was sure they were making for this 'convergence' point where Castiel waited at. He abruptly broke into a quicker pace, signalling Sam.

On the far corner from him, currently out of sight of the other pair or Cas, stood a pony-tailed woman in black leather talking to, lo-and-behold, Dan and Ella. _What they hell were they doing here too?  
_  
Sam followed Dean's lead, spotted them too and trotted after Dean.

Their sudden movement change drew the attention of the dust covered, long-striding pair, who appeared to make the other group and picked up the pace too. The well-dressed man's face broke into a wide toothy grin, one hand rising up.

Sam went cold.

As they came within a few yards of the front door, Castiel abruptly spun around and slammed the door closed. The tall black man and his well-dressed companion looked curiously. Cas slapped his hand on a bloody symbol painted there.

With a blinding flash of searing light, one of them vanished. Dean and Sam broke into a sprint.

Cas looked remaining newcomer with disbelief.

The tall man slammed Cas up against the doors moving with unearthly speed, literal fire glowing in his eyes. "Why the _bloody hell_ did you banish my only ride back home?!"


	6. A Demon, angel and Satan walk into a bar

Sam, running, collided with the two men.

Neither moved an inch.

Sam fell on his ass hard.

"HEY!" Dean jog/jumped over his brother and grabbed at the man on Castiel, with about the same effect. He could have easier budged a stopped bus.

Cas, feet dangling off the ground, grabbed the arms of his assailant. "Why are you still here?"

Heat rolled off of the new guy in visible waves. "Why did you try to remove me?" Dean swore he saw some of his skin turn red, creeping up along the cuffs and collar.

"You can't take her back yet. You would have brushed us all off and left!"

" _You're damn right I would have!_ " His voice was anger itself.

Dean was close enough to see red eyes. Good thing that kind of thing wasn't particularly weird to either him or Sam. He noted they weren't quite like demon eyes either. "HEY! Let Cas down! We're attracting attention!"

Fire Eyes laughed. "What's the matter, this place hasn't seen a celestial row before?"

Then Cas said the worst thing possible.

"Lucifer, _ThisIsNotYourWorld._ "

Sam jumped to his feet, pulling a silver knife, but holding it close. People were already rubbernecking. Dean hastily let go.

'Lucifer' glared up at Cas for a moment longer through fists clenched into the trench coat then dropped him ungently. Dean looked between Cas and the new guy, mentally gauging how much salt and holy water he had between them. Sam circled sideways, putting himself in a flank to his brother.

" _Lucifer Morningstar!_ " the random woman in leather from a moment ago stomped up and slapped him, hard. "Where have you been? I have been in this nightmare-whatever this is-for over a day!" Lucifer recoiled, looking put-out, the low fire vanishing to dark brown irises.

"Fine welcoming committee you lot are." Lucifer had collected himself, straightening his shirt cuffs.

He glared at Castiel. "To answer your earlier question, _cousin_ , I don't have my wings.I can't be banished like an _ordinary angel_. For the same damn reason, I couldn't hop over _here_ on my own either. I don't even know where you sent Amenadiel."

Lucifer eyed Sam. "And put that ridiculous thing away. Only Maze could hurt me, and she won't." He rubbed his cheek. "Much." A heavy looking onyx and silver ring glinted on his right hand. It reminded Dean uncomfortably of the horsemen they were also looking for.

Lucifer's dark eyes flicked away then back to Sam, but only for a split-second. "Where-"

Ella burst into their group a rush, smiling from ear to ear, and pounced on Lucifer, hugging him tightly. "You must be Lucifer! Oh my gosh! Maze has been so worried!"

Everyone stared at Ella, aside from Dan, who shrugged unhelpfully.

Lucifer looked decidedly uncomfortable. "This again? Ella, boundaries!"

She looked up at him from over a foot lower, still gripping him around the waist. "How'd you know who I am?"

He patted her on the head awkwardly. "Right. Well, then. You aren't _my_ Ella. Nice to see this world has you in it, though. Not that it likely deserves you." He looked past her, brightening. "Detective Douche! You're here too! Well, you might be of some use, I suppose. Where's Chloe?"

Dan seemed resigned to his new nickname, and assumed friendship with the strange man. "Why does everyone keep asking for _Chloe_?"

"What the hell is _Lucifer_ talking about, Cas?" The name came out of Sam's throat as if he were strangling it.

Cas cleared his throat. "We should move this indoors if no one is going to stab anyone in the immediate future?"

Maze raked her gaze over him. "Oh, that can be easily remedied." She watched Sam's knife at the same time Sam was watching Lucifer. The posh asshole may not have been paying attention to them, but this Maze was. She looked ready to intercept either of them if they launched themselves toward 'her boss.' At this point, he wasn't sure which way Cas would break either.

Lucifer agreed. "I could use a bottle or two of Whiskey. You and I need to have a little private chat, _Cas."_

RIght now, whatever the hell was going on, Dean was counting being one angel down as a good thing. "We're with him."

Turning to Cas, Lucifer asked the question, not without some sympathy, "Do they _know_ who you are?"

"They do."

"Fine. They can come. Dan, Ella? I don't like being outnumbered, you in?"

Dan muttered, "Hooray, he knows my real name." Louder, "Sure, why not."

Lucifer's gaze swept upwards at the club sign above them, freezing in place. "What the fecking _bloody hell_ happened to my club?"

Dean leaned in toward Cas. "Is he supposed to be British?"

* * *

They went inside "Rodeo," for lack of any better suggestions. If Amenadiel made his way back from wherever on this planet he'd been banished to, at least they'd be here. Without the ability to fly though, it could be a while.

Lucifer immediately regretted the decision to go inside. He still didn't know who Maze wound up in this Dadforsaken place, and there's no telling where his brother got banished. Time to organize Plan B.

Everything was sideways. The strings of lights were gone, replaced by tacky overhead bulbs that resembled pointed stars. One wall had a mural, for crying out loud. There were eye-watering colored sombreros and what would only generously be called cowboy hats stacked in a pile behind the bar.

He withdrew a wad of twenties and threw it at the waiter, asking to port over "All the good Whiskey, bring shot glasses and tumblers." The guy who looked sort of like Dan but a hair shorter and his brother-had to be-he knew brothers, eyed the pile of money like it was a pack of snakes. Lucifer vaguely hoped money looked the same here, but the waiter only blinked and left with it.

Maze sat herself next to Dean and eyed him appreciatively, now that he wasn't standing at the ready. Good. Maybe she'll keep him distracted. The brothers seemed to have a tie-in with poor Castiel, so he was probably stuck with them for now. However Ella and Daniel got involved, they would be able to get in touch with people on this plane.

"Right, 'round we go." He pointed at Ella "Ella. Daniel" Then to Maze, "Mazikeen." He pointed at Cas, who glared, but responded, "Castiel." he pointed at Dean, who glared but didn't pipe up. "RIght then, I'll call you 'Douche the Second'." And you? The blond man who had to be taller than even him looking somewhere between bewildered and like the cosmos were pulling a massive joke on him. He glared too and responded in a flat tone. " _Sam._ You know, your chosen vessel?"

Lucifer leaned back, ignoring whatever the hell that meant. "Right then, anyone at the table who _isn't_ in the know with the angels and demons and whatnot, raise your hands. And Ella, you know what I mean, so don't argue."

Ella and Dan looked at each other, then hesitantly raised their hands. No one else did, which meant the brothers were either truly aware of what Castiel was or had an excellent idea. By their stony expressions, he was going to go with 100% in the mix.

"Well, then, if either of you don't want your brains to melt, I suggest you scoot out while you can, and I'll find you later. Even if you aren't 'my Douchella,' I can probably still use your assistance. Granted, I can't offer you many favors in return, since I plan to leave as soon as angelically possible, but I'll do what I can."

Ella didn't hesitate. "Hey, apparently you already know us, so I wanna know what's going on." She did, however touch her shirt where Lucifer knew she wore her crucifix on a golden chain.

Daniel held up a finger, grabbed two shots from the returning waiter and downed them. "Okay, go. If this doesn't work out, I'll drink myself under the table and hopefully won't remember any of it tomorrow. I'm also not leaving Ella here by herself. And it's Dan, not Daniel."

Ella elbowed him with a grin. "Aww. Thanks, buddy!" She pulled a shot toward herself.

"Suit yourselves."

Castiel pushed his glass away, the blue eyes of the human he was in much different from what Lucifer might have expected. "Lucifer-"

He held up a finger. "In my world, my game is free will. It's not like I didn't warn them. Aside from busting out wings, which _neither_ of us can do right now. And I'd _really_ rather not go full crispy in a public place."

The angel-in-a-human reconsidered his glass. Lucifer took three shots in a row of glasses and refilled them. Then leaned over and filled Cas' untouched shot glass to the brim.

Garth Brooks played in the background over abused speakers. ( _I got friends in low places…_ )

Ella downed a shot. "I'll go first. Dude, your real name is Lucifer?"

"Well, this was bound to happen anyway, might as well get it over with early. Lucifer Morningstar. Ex-Lord of Hell, Satan, Beelzebub, Devil, take your pick. No, I don't want your souls. Or-" he looked at Sam, tenting his fingers and he dropping his voice to a purr. "Your _vessel_ , whatever that is. Unless, of course, it's innuendo for your-"

Castiel quickly interrupted, "It's not."

"No, you're probably right. He doesn't look like my type." He dropped his hands, mouth twitching.

"You have a type?" Castiel was on shot #2. ( _Where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases…_ )

"Willing."

Douche the Second sniffed his shot. "Cas, could you please just start from the beginning. I'd really, _really_ , like to know if have _that_ to thank for any of my wonderful time in Hell. And if I have to kill him for it."

Daniel took another shot. ( _And I'll be okay…_ )

Maze laughed.

Lucifer gestured with his glass. "Castiel, really, how are you surviving this?"

Castiel scowled. It seemed a permanent feature. He directed his ire at Douche 2. "Dean. This Lucifer is not the same one we're dealing with, so you might as well consider him another angel."

"Now hang on. I've got my own body, that's got to count for something."

Dean's demeanor did not improve. "An angel that we can't banish. And has a bodyguard. Oh, and is _both_ an angel and the Lord of Hell."

Maze reached under the table. ( _Now I'm not big on social graces…_ )

" _Ex-_ Lord of Hell, thank you. If I still had my wings, you would have banished me just fine."

Dean's face hadn't changed expression since he sat down. "That's the second time you've mentioned wings. Angels don't have physical wings."

Ella's face rested on her chin. Daniel had his fourth shot hovering halfway up to his lips for the last minute, warming in his fingers.

Cas sighed. Again. "His _Grace_ is partly tied up in his wings, which are able to manifest in his world, unlike my own. Both are still 'real'. His power is _slightly_ diminished without them." Castiel looked a question at his cousin.

Dean was lost. Sam was still looking daggers at Lucifer. "Cas."

Lucifer nodded in what he thought was a friendly way. "He's quite serious. Apparently you chaps-" pointing to Castiel "don't have physical wings. Amenadiel couldn't fly us in from the desert. It was miserable. He's going to need a thorough grooming before we're done here. Anyway, when I left hell, I had Maze cut them off. Shortly after that, I burned them. Much to her disappointment."

Dan still hadn't drunk his fourth shot, hovering over the table. Ella reached for the bottle.

Castiel was utterly appalled. "You amputated your own wings?"

"Got the scars to prove it. I'm never going back to Hell. Dad can suck it and find someone else to punish the wicked for the rest of eternity."

Sam shook himself. "You left. And you aren't going back. And now you're here to run the earth instead." He sneered, his voice very quiet for a large man. "Was the plan to somehow beat 'our' Lucifer to the punch? You have two worlds all to yourself? Maybe more?"

Dean jumped slightly and looked down at what had to be Maze' hand on his thigh.

Daniel successfully took his shot. Ella hadn't budged. She was barely breathing.

"Dad, no! I want to get back to my world, my-" He waved around at the abomination they were in "-club, my patrons and go back to solving crimes with my _bloody partner_ , which none of you have told me where she is."

Daniel looked up. "Maze-" he looked over at the scary woman "-You, kept asking for 'Chloe Decker."

"Thank you, Maze, yes, _bloody Chloe Decker_. Where is she?"

He and Ella exchanged looks. "We don't know. We checked it out because it sounded so strange. We had a John Decker in the force who passed away in the line of duty, but that was a while ago."

He threw his hands in the air. " _Yes,_ that was Chloe's father. Did she not enter the police force here?"

Daniel shrugged uncomfortably. "There's...no Chloe. John didn't have any children at all. It was rumored they badly wanted one."

"No Chloe-" He felt shock wash over his face. "Who did you marry then?"

Dan looked extremely confused, took another shot. "Lucy. Why?" ( _yeehaw_ )


	7. Daggers

Well, this was all going to shit.

Dean cleared his throat. "Cas, we've officially gone off the rails. We have one Satan _trying_ to get free and one who doesn't want to go back to hell. I'm starting to think just trading universes is a better idea and we can all go home."

Castiel drank his shot. "We do NOT want that, Dean."

Sam was pushing his glass around, not looking at Lucifer, but directing his voice at him. "You seem fixated on this woman who was supposed to marry-" he pointed at Dan, "that guy?"

"Not that it matters, but they divorced, obviously."

Daniel looked up at the lights, considering a fifth shot of booze. "Oh, _obviously_." he blinked. "Not that it _matters?_ Are you why we-they divorced?"

"Not at all. Don't feel too put out. Your counterpart and she had a lovely child together. You know, for a human spawn. Trixie is quite tolerable."

"We-uh. We named her _Trixie_? Was Chloe a stripper?"

"Beatrice, actually. Chloe _is_ my Detective partner with the LAPD."

"Satan works...for the police. With me, I presume." Daniel made it less a question and more a statement. He looked at the scuffed table top through his glass.

Dean finally shot his drink, clearly trying not to appreciate good booze. "I've changed my mind. You can keep your universe."

"Civilian Police Consultant, actually. Flat out refused to provide me a firearm." Not that he couldn't get one.

"Imagine that. I gotta ask, do they... _know_ you're Satan?"

"I tell them constantly. They think I'm a method actor. Can you believe it? I'm a crime solving Devil. Don't overthink it!"

"Sure, it makes sense." Dean pulled the bottle for a refill.

Sam squinted at Lucifer. Flatly, "The devil has a girlfriend?"

Ella went doe-eyed.

"Still working on that. She's immune to my influence. If she were _here_ , she'd be the only useful human of you lot, I assure you."

Castiel ignored his empty shot glass. "Lucifer, we need to move on from your fixation of whoever this person is that doesn't exist in our world. I don't see what use one more human would be to our situation."

Lucifer eyed Castiel, steepling his fingers in mock prayer. "Yes, let's focus on the real reason I'm still here. _You_ actively prevented us from taking Maze home." Throwing in a _this discussion isn't over_ look.

Maze' hidden hand shifted, leaning slightly toward Dean. "Oh, I don't know, this place is starting to have some perks."

Castiel spared her a glance. Ella helpfully refilled his shot. "Your...friend who came through first brought along some very interesting weapons."

Dean and Sam perked up, both tensing.

"One of the reasons I didn't get back to you two sooner is that I was able to find out what it was we are dealing with. It wasn't an ordinary summoning, and I knew she came through with something powerful. Mazikeen, may I see one of your knives?"

She snarled, then glanced at Lucifer. He nodded at her, curious. It's not like she couldn't get it back if he tried to make off with it. Maze revealed one of them, embedding it violently into the surface of the table.

Everyone jumped, save Lucifer who grinned to himself. He'd missed her in the short time they'd been apart.

Castiel gingerly pointed. "These are the ones that cut off your wings, correct?"

Lucifer was checking his phone and muttering under his breath. He looked up. "This place could at least have good wi-fi. Not that my email is working. Hmm? Not by themselves. But yes. Forged in Hell and all that. They would have been more useful if they were bigger. Takes a long time to cut up a chicken my size."

Cas' expression came close to annoyance. "They're the only blade in his world that can hurt, or even kill Lucifer."

The brothers exchanged a look. They weren't good at subtle. Sam asked, "Angel Blades and Demon Blades?" He leaned toward the darkly gleaming knife, crossing his arms on the table. The curved tip bit into the surface of the table by a good inch or so. Maze wasn't even showing off at this point.

"Different kind of thing. Angel and Demon Blades can't hurt Lucifer." Cas inclined his head. "Either that one or our own and not just because the last seal hasn't broken yet."

Ella clicked on. "Seals? Like, _Revelations_?"

Castiel glanced at her. "Only 66 seals have to be broken to free… Lucifer. And Sam is his chosen vessel to contain him and wreak destruction on the earth. If we can't stop the final seals from being broken, these knives could be a possible solution to our...problem."

Lucifer felt his face etch with distaste. "You want to destroy your Lucifer?" Well, someone else could run hell here too, he supposed. Maybe he could talk the chap into retirement as well.

The other angel grimaced. "Unfortunately, it's necessary. He's predestined to battle Michael for possession of the earth, which does not end well for the mortal inhabitants."

"What if I have a chat with him? Earth is enough of a mess with these creatures running it as it is."

If looks could eviscerate. "Absolutely not. In any case, he's still restricted to his cage and cannot get into a vessel unless freed from hell."

"How about I help you pop off the rest of the seals, and we go stab him then? Let me talk to him with the business end of a hell-forged dagger in him?"

Everyone, save Maze, went pale.

Sam recovered first. "We don't want him to get free!"

"Well, I can't bloody well be expected to dally around waiting for him, can I?"

Maze coughed.

"Can we?"

Ella cradled the Whiskey bottle to her chest. "Are there like, horsemen and everything?"

Cas, "Yes. But no horses."

"Aww."

Dan was leaning heavily on Ella; his fifth shot caught up to him hard. "They'd be _evil_ horses."

Ella nodded in agreement. "Totally."

Lucifer gently extracted the bottle from Ella. "I think we've achieved brain melting stage. Cas, is the apocalypse really going to be that bad? We're talking about ending immortals here."

Sam blinked, "Is the _APOCALYPSE_ going to be that bad?"

Cas answered, "Very, very bad. Half the humans gone, probably. Massive devastation. The Bible barely skimmed the surface. You seem to...care about your mortals. I'd advise putting off your apocalypse if at all possible."

It was rare he felt he needed to be defensive about being the Devil. "Only a little. They can be quite entertaining. There's a thought, why not invite your friends over to my place the next time I hold a good old-fashioned greek orgy? I assure you they'll enjoy themselves."

Sam inhaled his whiskey, coughing hard.

Lucifer threw his hands up. "I have no desire to set off 'my' apocalypse. I don't want to fight my Dad or Michael for that matter. They can keep the damn heavens for all I care."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "What? You're just going to wander all over the earth for the rest of eternity? Entertaining yourself?"

"I hadn't gotten that far, I've only been retired for around six or seven years." Honestly. It could be a millennia or three before he even started to worry about 'plans.' At the rate humans were going, he might even figure a way to go with them when they get off this damn rock.

Maze pulled up her knife. "You can't have them."

Dean jumped again, and her arms crossed her chest. She glared. "They're mine."

Cas had the grace to appear slightly guilty. "I was only going to borrow them."

" _HA_!"

"The longer things not of this world are in ours, makes it more likely something else is going to come through, or go to yours. I would have to give them back eventually."

"How? When?"

"An Archangel could do it. Or-" he glanced at Lucifer.

"Amenadiel."

"Could bring them back to you."

Maze grumped. "Amenadiel doesn't like me. And he's not back yet."

Dean broke in, "These things would let us kill Lucifer?" He made no point of excluding present company. _Douche_.

Castiel nodded, "Lucifer would have to be drawn into a lesser vessel, obviously, not Sam. He's bound to have some picked out, but they won't last. The problem is we don't know if he'll be more susceptible or less in such a vessel."

Lucifer scooted a little closer to Sam, who was scowling down at his glass. Dean watched Maze and Cas.

Dean drank, turning the shot glass upside down to prevent refills. "Cas, how do we know those things even work? Slicey choppy?"

Castiel winced. Sighed. "Maze?"

She grinned from ear to ear. "Hold out your arm." This would be fun.

He did, pulling back his sleeve and presenting his forearm.

Faster than thought, Maze pinned his hand to the table in one move. Blood pooled rapidly out of the wound, spreading across the surface. "GAH!" Lucifer cackled.

She sat back, smirking.

Castiel glared at her. "You only needed to cut me."

She shrugged, one-shouldered, "I did." She licked her lips. "Besides, I doubt you're going to perform knife-play when you track down _your_ Lucifer."

Dean and Lucifer were equally amused. Sam alarmed. Cas managed to pull the knife out with his other hand. Ella watched the bloody mess with wide eyes. Dan was out. Lucifer wondered about the brothers' reactions and what kind of terms they were actually on with Castiel.

TIme to draw some lines. "Speaking of the _not-me_ , why are _these_ humans so special? What makes that one a chosen whatever?"

Sam rose from his chair, grabbing a bandage stashed in a black duffle that smelled suspiciously of spell components and handed it over to Castiel who wrapped his hand. Cas frowned. "We're working on that particular aspect. Winchesters are...popular with monsters and demons. More so than other hunters."

"Hmpf. Why don't I just ask him myself?" Lucifer reached out, getting ahold of Sam's bare forearm as he sat back down. Surprised and half-off balance, his hazel eyes were caught by Lucifer's dark. Dean sat up. The Devil snared his prey. "Sammy, _darling_ , tell me, just what makes you so interesting?"

Power swirled inside the younger brother. Different from his plane. Pulsing below the surface of Sam's skin was a vibrancy of light and dark at war. Much more was happening here than the boy's enlistment against forces of darkness. Sam was human, certainly, but also...Hell touched? Sam jerked back with a snap, "I'm not interesting!" Resistant. Complicated. _Extremely interesting_.

"I beg to differ." He needed to find out if both brothers had this, whatever this was. He couldn't count on cornering Dean any time soon though, now.

The world unpaused. Dean was halfway across the table, and Lucifer let go of Sam. "Don't get pissy. I learned more in the last twenty seconds than I have this whole tiresome session."

Everyone stopped. Maze had one hand on her blade from Castiel, arm against Dean. Sam fell back, blinking, the spell broken.

Dean's voice was dangerous. "Sam, you alright?"

Sam shook his head, glaring. "Yeah, he didn't. Yeah. I'm okay."

Ella poked Cas' arm. "Hey, issat th'knife from the summonin' circle?"

Lucifer clapped his hands together once. "Right, there's another aspect to his whole thing, isn't there? Why don't we all go have a nice sit down with the arseholes who kidnapped Maze?" He dropped a napkin on the blood on the table. "Well, maybe not Ella and Dan. Someone may need to drive them home."

Dean shoved Maze away and stood up, pushing his chair back and circling around to his brother. "What did you do?"

Lucifer leaned back, disarming. "I just wanted to see what I was dealing with. He's wrong. You're both very interesting indeed. Especially the handsome one." Let them try to figure that out. Shame they were brothers. They'd be picturesque in his black satin-sheeted bed. Unless they were into that, but he read them both as burying the needle in the hetero-end of the spectrum. He wouldn't have any luck seducing them individually. Shame.

Ella was singing under her breath, eyes glazed. "Sammy and Lucifer sittin' in a tree…"

Dean and Sam looked equally horrified, which was saying something.

Definitely hetero. Well, maybe Maze could help with that.

Castiel kept pressure on his hand, frowning at it. Blood was still seeping out from under the bandage. "Can you just, not use your powers on them? They have enough problems. And apparently so do your friends."

"I don't make promises I can't keep. And I don't intend to limit myself here more than I have to."

Dean turned his glare to Cas. "Did you know he could do that?"

"He's Lucifer. He has abilities. Some of which will be unfamiliar here. Speaking of, what about Amenadiel?"

Lucifer shrugged. "As long as Verizon still exists in this world, he might be able to get a hold of me once he returns. We have our own phones, that might work. If not, well, I can always just pray to him. That'll do in a pinch. I was desperately hoping he'd pop in again." He had a thought. "How powerful are you, Castiel? You aren't an archangel."

"The banishment shouldn't be this severe. He might be back on your home plane, but he might be out cold in Texas. It might be tied to the summoning problem that started this mess."

 _Which begs yet another wonderful question_. If summoning is wonky all over, it might be harder to get home. "How's that?"

"Obviously, a standard demon summons would never cross planes."

Dean was still standing. Sam hadn't settled and opted for standing. "Speaking of, what happened to the demon that was summoned?"

Maze smiled wickedly. "I'm right here, baby."

"Cas! I've been sitting next to a demon, and you didn't tell me?"

"She's not possessing anyone. She's more like a powerful human than one of our demons. She can't leave that body, and for some reason, their world has prohibitions on demons - or angels - killing humans."

"Spoilsport."

"And immortal. And you're not like our demons. You and Lucifer don't have 'meat-suits.' Apparently, you can't teleport or disapparate either." He shrugged at Dean. "See? Barely a demon."

Lucifer shuddered. "I think I'd like to get off this plane before I meet your underworld dwellers. They sound dreadful. Teleportation would be useful, eh, Maze?"

She shrugged.

Dean looked unconvinced. "Cas, how do you know he's telling the truth about not being able to teleport."

Lucifer supplied, "My dear Dean, I'm the Devil. I never lie."


	8. Tricks of the Trade

The sunset cast red-gold light behind a weary and emotionally strained group of humans, angels, demons, and one Devil.

The latter seemed to be the only one with any significant cash, so he got Ella and the Detective loaded into two cabs and sent home. Lucifer passively hoped Daniel wouldn't catch too much hell from his wife, whoever she was.

He really wanted to get to the bottom of this nonsense about there being Ella and Dan but no Chloe here. Especially with the first two being dead ringers, down to Ella's enthusiastic hugging and Daniel's...Dan-ness.

In the meantime, he had to get back. WIth both him and Maze being gone, their humans might get worried. He probably should have left Chloe a note but this wasn't supposed to go this long. Amenadiel hadn't turned up yet, and their phones still wouldn't connect. New sim cards were high on the list for the next day. No use crying over spilt angels.

Without any better ideas, they headed in the general direction of the brothers' ride.

Lucifer smiled when he spotted the Impala as their destination. "Ah, one of you has style after all! Lovely wheels, boys."

Dean was unmoved. "She was dad's. Gets us around."

"Pish. She's glorious. If you don't take good care of her, I'm taking her back home somehow. She can sleep next to my Corvette. Also black and silver, incidentally."

Sam rolled his eyes. He had the duffle over one shoulder, hesitating at throwing it back in the trunk where it wouldn't be accessible. "Well, you aren't riding with us, wherever we're going. I doubt anything here in L.A. is going to be in our budget anyway, so we'll have to drive out of town. I'd prefer not leaving either of you out of our sight, but five of us in Baby is out of the question."

"No problem, there are any number of L.A. inhabitants who owe me favors. I can just-"

Maze counted down mentally.

Lucifer grumbled. "Right, hmpf. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so heavy handed with the booze. Maze, love, how much cash have you got on you?"

* * *

 **Their luck held out on at least one thing. Lucifer's American Express worked, at least for tonight. After some feet-dragging on the part of the boys, Lucifer housed them in one of his favorite five-star hotels, just around the block from the club, which was unchanged enough that he recognized the manager as someone he knew in his world and sweet-talked him into thinking they were old friends in this one.**

The Devil himself happily scrubbed his damp, clean hair with a plush towel. He wore another one around his waist, having sent his suit downstairs for cleaning, with instructions to provide a second shirt, burn the socks he arrived in and replace those. He ordered an overnight bag packed with toiletries, to be sent up with clean clothes when they were done.

He sprung for a full suite- 'smoke 'em if you got 'em.'- while the card worked, with two bedrooms, two baths and a living area. He predicted their good fortune wouldn't extend beyond the next day before the card was canceled since the odds of it even working were low to begin with. Luckily, he'd _eventually_ developed the sense to obtain credit cards with names other than 'Lucifer Morningstar' emblazoned across the front.

Sam and Dean rejected first attempts to order room service, but after Lucifer's Pittsburg style porterhouse, seared scallops, butter potatoes and steamed greens arrived, they grudgingly allowed him to call up for sandwiches. Lucifer obligingly added crisps, beer and apple pie.

Dean eyed the pie very suspiciously. "Why pie?"

"Who doesn't like _pie?_ Seriously?"

Cas startled. He didn't seem inclined to remove his coat. "Dean, you...devour pie. You _also_ use fake cards."

Dean snagged a slice with only a little reluctance. "No card I ever scavenged had credit limits that could get us in a place like this."

Maze, oddly enough, opted for sandwiches as well - roast beef. She ate leaning near the door, not letting her guard down just yet, matching Castiel side-eye for side-eye.

Lucifer, naturally, was oblivious. "Enjoy it! Sounds like you 'hunters' don't get nearly enough creature comforts."

Sam emerged from one of the rooms in a plush robe, also toweling his hair.

Lucifer picked up a few bread rolls, weighing them, but directing his gaze over at Sammy. "Well, don't you clean up nice. I don't suppose I couldn't persuade you to share _my_ room?"

Sam jerked back, reflexively holding the robe closed. "Seriously? Aren't pining after some woman?"

He shrugged, juggling three rolls. "Can't blame a Devil for trying. She won't have me, alas. So I have to drown my many sorrows in whatever other lovely subject happens across my path." He didn't sound particularly distraught and he spared Sam another leer. Maze snorted.

Dean shot a look at Cas. "Is this normal? I feel like we've been saddled with a horny teenager whose balls have just dropped."

Cas sat on the couch. "I didn't exactly know _him_. Our Lucifer apparently took being kicked out of heaven a lot more personally."

Lucifer took some pie for himself. "Your boy sounds like a miserable fellow."

Sam tightened his robe, snatching a sandwich and beer quickly, and sitting next to Cas, as far from Lucifer as possible. "Yes, because all we really need to do is put him up in a nice hotel instead of Hell and maybe he won't try to fight Michael for possession of the earth."

"Michael is a prat in every universe." he looked in a mirror, squinting closely at his face. "Where's Dad in all this?" To Maze. "Darling, did you happen to get demon-napped with any liner on you?"

Maze rolled her eyes. "Really?"

"One of us out of this lot should probably look our best. Never hurts."

Sammy blinked.

He shot a look back at him before turning back to the mirror. "Vanity is one of my favorite deadly sins." He ran his fingers through clean hair critically. "I'll need product too."

Dean scraped his plate clean. "Dad?"

Cas rubbed his face. "He means God. And no one really knows."

"So, same as in mine then?" He cocked his head. "How about Mum?"

The older brother got more pie and a beer. "Can we leave this for later? What's the plan? And for the love of God, can you please just...stop being British?"

Lucifer looked put upon. "My American accent is atrocious. You really don't want to hear it."

Castiel cleared his throat. "The original plan was to _borrow_ the blades. However, we still don't know why Mazikeen came through. We don't know why we haven't heard from Amenadiel, phone coverage area aside. If any of his powers work here like mine do, he should be able to find us eventually. There does seem to be some crossover on limitations, there might be some on abilities as well."

"There's a thought. Maze, can you turn into smoke?"

She responded with a rude gesture.

"I'll take that as a 'no'. What other activities do demons do here, other than rampantly murdering?"

Dean responded reluctantly. "They trade deals for your soul."

The Devil was offended. "This place gets worse and worse. Half the bloody population sends themselves to Hell anyway, why make deals for more?"

The other angel in the room tilted his head slightly. "They want power. The demons vie for position in Hell. More deals get you more power. Makes them harder to exorcise, harder to banish. Harder to kill."

That earned a snort from Maze.

"In any case, we'll try to avoid any...smoke demons."

Sam's phone pinged. Dean tossed it to him from the table. The younger brother looked at it curiously. "It's Ella. She regained consciousness and says she emailed several photos from the basement. I'm pretty sure she doesn't still think we're FBI agents though."

Dean broke out their laptop. "Go get dressed. I'll get these downloaded and we can have a look." He eyed Lucifer who moved to get out of his chair at the prospect. "Before I let you get near this thing, _or me_ , what was it you did back there to Sam?"

Sam waited to hear as well.

"Nothing, just my Devilish mojo, as some call it. I draw out innermost desires. Some humans are more complicated than others and harder to crack. I'm not a Jedi...Do you have Jedi here?"

Double eye rolls from the brothers. Sam asked with a look over at Cas, "Not mind-reading then?"

"That'd be much more useful. Cut right to the chase. No, no mind-reading. Sammy there is far more resistant than most, in fact. I find it intriguing."

Dean snorted. Cas offered, "It's the truth. He's not a mind-reader, nor a mind-controller. He does compulsions. He's probably going to try it on you too at some point."

"Cas. Quit spoiling all my fun."

Dean glowered. "You do that, and you get a fist to the face."

"You do _that_ and you'll have a broken hand. I'm no vessel."

"If you want our help getting back home, you need to abide by our rules. No mojo. No other 'Devil' crap on us you haven't told us about. On us or Cas."

"No more banishing my ride and you have a deal."

Dean clamped his jaw tight.

"For heaven's sake. My kind of deal. I'm not interesting in your souls. Any of you."

Lucifer turned to toss his hair towel back in the bathroom, earning a collective inhale from the other men in the room.

"Hmm? Right, told you had the scars to prove it."


	9. Too Close for Comfort

Apparently 'their rules' included being forced into red flannel sleep pants, a faded black t-shirt washed with a detergent of questionable quality and low-thread count underwear. Sam flatly refused to share the laptop until _everyone_ was dressed. _Especially_ after Lucifer loudly stated he'd instead go naked than wear their spare clothes.

Dean teetered on the verge of punching Lucifer just to test the 'broken hand' theory. Pie or no pie.

After the dust settled, Maze volunteered to go shopping/stealing because it would get her out of reach of hearing Lucifer bitch about wearing Sam's clothing. Sam wasn't thrilled about sharing garments either but Dean's pj's just wouldn't have fit. Freaking, stupid giants, the lot of them.

The companions resided together on that island of 'okay, we aren't going to murder each other, probably, but I don't trust you other assholes to not screw something up.'

However, _Don't Split The Party_ is time-honored advice to game players everywhere for a reason, no matter what country - or dimension - you are from.

Cas didn't _necessarily_ have a problem with being forced to keep Lucifer around - he didn't particularly want him left alone with the brothers either, if only because he knew the kind of mischief Lucifer could and _would_ cause. Cas wasn't all that useful on supply runs anyway.

Sam was better with languages and more familiar with the demon summoning and exorcising incantations, so Dean threw himself in front of the bullet and 'volunteered' to go with her. He at least had significant skills in gathering resources. He didn't want her free to cause demonic trouble.

Lucifer caught the smile she repressed in favor of an impatient, "Just don't slow me down."

He threw a last glance at Cas. "If he does _anything_ to Sam while we're gone, I'm holding you responsible."

Castiel blinked. "Sam isn't his vessel."

Lucifer rolled his eyes.

"Still the _Devil_. Cas. Remember?"

His face became plastered with confusion. "Of course I remember. His rules are different. He won't hurt Sam." His voice reflected absolute certainty. Then after a moment added, "Without provocation."

Dean glared. "If I had any, I wouldn't know any of my _cousins_ well enough to say that."

"Everything will be fine. Until the apocalypse."

The brothers exchanged a look, as they are wont to do, and the Demon and Dean were out the door.

Sam, now dressed, flipped open the journal, just in case John Winchester had anything on plane jumping. Astral or Dimensional. Cas reseated himself at the table - an angel and a devil on opposite sides of Sam.

Sam paged through the downloaded images on the laptop, keeping half an eye on Lucifer. "So the Devil's Trap looked basically right. Plus, it worked on Maze. We don't have confirmation on any others, but there's no reason it wouldn't have, that I can see."

Lucifer _finally_ turned serious as the words sank in. "She was held against her will?"

"For several hours, that we know of. Unless the lines are broken by an outside force, a demon can be theoretically trapped until the line material itself degrades. As long as they're intact though, the Devil's Trap works without fail. Don't you have traps?"

The Devil shivered slightly. "Demons _rarely_ leave hell, and can't really do so on their own. I have to be in physical contact with Maze to take her with me if I need her, but I require my wings to go to and from Hell. But yes, some kinds exist."

Sam and Cas both looked over. Cas asked, "You really can't go back to Hell without them?"

"Not without taking the hard way. That was the idea, yes. I suppose if Dad wanted, he could just have Michael throw me back in the Pit." He shrugged, as if unconcerned.

Sam thought the concept bothered their new celestial a lot more than he let on. He made a mental note to ask about _his_ Michael later.

He clicked to photos of the overall scene again. "I'd like to see the source that was used. At the time, I assumed the cultist had a book on demonic possession and took it with them after Maze kicked their ass, but it might help to see what exactly they downloaded and from where."

Cas frowned, "Surely no one spelled out instructions on how to summon a demon on the internet where anyone can get them? Humans can't be that stupid and short-sighted?"

Lucifer snorted.

Sam ignored him. "Wouldn't be the first time some idiot dipped their toes in the occult and pulled back a bloody stump."

Sam dialed Ella. He wasn't sure she'd pick up.

Her voice sounded thick. "Oh, Hey.. _.FBI slash totally not Men In Black operatives_ slash Devil Dude...this is the weirdest case I've ever not officially worked on. Or actually worked on. I sent you photos, but I'm not sure how else I can help."

"Did you pick up any of those sheets on the floor back in the basement? Your photos are pretty good, but I can't make out the URL. I tried Googling some of the phrases I can read, but it's not turning up the site shown in the photos."

"Yeah, but I have to make a trip down the precinct to get them, and I'm not in any shape to drive. Or walk."

"You filed the case?"

"No, but I didn't feel right carrying around stuff in evidence bags. They're in a 'to file later' cabinet in the evidence room."

Lucifer perked up. "Oh! I am well acquainted with that room, as long as the station is still in the same building. It's a nice little spot for private get-togethers."

Ella paused. "...You're not wrong about that last part. My lab shares a wall with the evidence room. But, dude, when were you at the station?"

Sam rubbed his face with both hands, interrupting Lucifer before he could respond. "Never mind. Can we swing by in the morning? I think we all need some sleep." he caught Lucifer's face out of the corner of his eye and just responded with, "No."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." They needed to say on her good side. "What time can we come by?"

Ella groaned. "Early. Before it gets busy. Bring coffee."

"You got it. Thanks for your help. 'Night."

Sam hung up, staring at his phone like it might provide him with more answers. Or explode and take him out of the equation of this clusterfuck.

Lucifer reached for the open journal, interested in what passes for magic in this world. "So what's all this then? You boys-"

Sam reacted with lightning reflexes, smacking his hand away. He closed it, yanking it out of Lucifer's reach.

The Devil jerked back. "Ow! I wasn't going to-" He stopped to look at his hand, turning it over several times. " _Ow_? What the hell?"

"What the hell, _what?_ " The expression on Sam's face reeked of suspicion.

Cas jumped up. "You should not have been able to do that."

"Do what? Hit him?"

Lucifer glared in response. " _Hurt_ me. Chloe's the _only_ human that makes me vulnerable. There's no Chloe here, so I'm _supposed_ to be _in_ vulnerable." He glared at Sam.

Sam stilled. "I swear to God, If the universe hates me that much, I'm going to lose my mind. I'm _not_ your vessel." He exuded disgust.

"I don't _need_ your body." His smirk came back. "I can't insert myself into you unless-"

His voice pitched louder, angry. "Just stop! Can you just be serious? Cas?"

"We should have Dean try when he gets back, to see if it's just Sam. I'm still an angel, so causing him injury may or may not help reach a conclusion. How does this Chloe make you...vulnerable? Does she have to do something?"

Lucifer rubbed his hand. "No, just be nearby. Somewhere around ten meters or closer, regardless of direction. I haven't figured out the exact measurement."

The angel puzzled over it. "God had something to do with it, maybe?" He cocked his head. "Can you still go 'full'...what did you call it?"

Lucifer shot a glance at Sam. "Crispy? What for?"

"Just to make sure this is not happening because you are _here._ You might be affected by the shift in ways we are not aware of yet."

Sam looked between them. "Crispy?"

The Devil took a breath, then stopped. "I feel like I can. Do you think it'd break him?"

Cas considered. "I haven't actually witnessed your Devil form."

The younger brother looked annoyed. "Whatever it is, I'm sure I've seen worse. Hunted an _d killed_ worse."

"No need to get your knickers in a twist."

"Knock it off. You made a _deal_ not to do Devil stuff on us, remember?"

"It's not _mojo_ , just my true form. All I do is drop my glamour that you see now. You saw a lesser version of it when I arrived at that Dad-awful club."

"The red eyes? So what, you look like-?"

"Like the _Devil?_ Funny that. It's much harder to walk around humans when I don't look like one."

"And you think it might…'break' me?"

"Tends to scare the crap out of most humans, usually literally. It can drive them catatonic for hours, even days. Had particular fun with a street preacher with it."

Cas regarded him flatly. "Perhaps later."

"And about about this, then?" Lucifer flexed his hand like he'd been stung by a scorpion instead of swatted like a child.

"Your Chloe _is_ human, correct?"

"Already checked her for angel wings. No wing scars, no wing pockets. I'd know if she were a demon. In my universe, there's really nothing else she could be that I wouldn't recognize."

"Then we should probably wait for Dean to come back and see if he can hurt you too."

Lucifer didn't restrain the sarcasm in his tone. "Lovely."

Maze carried a half-full black duffle over her shoulder that bore a striking resemblance to the Winchesters'. Over the last hour, She either purchased or 'procured' clothing for herself and Lucifer.

Dean was actually having fun. Usually, Sam was the one who took up the look-out position while he employed light fingers.

When possible, he and Sam used cash won through pool hustling, but they were running low, and he didn't particularly want to finance the Demon/Devil supply run himself anyway.

He and Maze took turns playing 'distract the mark' when the credit cards didn't work. Dean played the 'lost out-of-towner' (not hard for him), and Maze played 'sexy escort with barely two brain cells to rub together' (very hard, minus the sexy part).

Between their efforts, Maze replaced various sharp-edged weaponry she arrived here without. Dean _knew_ where she stashed them on her body, but he couldn't spot them for looking.

And she caught him looking.

She paid for a burner phone that would have to be activated, and couldn't just be walked off with, and a new SIM card for Lucifer's phone, and a charger for Steve's phone.

Stepping back out onto the sidewalk and into the warm night made her miss her L.A.. The differences were subtle, but they were there.

Dean caught her staring up at the gaudy nightclub from before, passing it on the way back to their room. "He really owns it?"

She tensed. "It's 'Lux' there. Absolutely no cactuses. I have half a mind to break into the penthouse just to see what's different, but I'd probably strangle someone if I find sombreros."

He shook his head. "I did not start out today with enough brain juice to deal with this crap. Your Lucifer up and walking around and not giving a shit, apparently. And ours wants the apocalypse, to fight a battle he might not even win."

Breathing out slowly, she watched the other evening wanderers. "He says he's _retired_ , but we'll go back eventually. Wings or no wings. His deadbeat dad isn't going to let him have that much of a break." If she wanted a shot at bedding him, she needed to talk about Hell less. "We should go back where we belong."

"And here I thought Sam and I were the only ones who weren't fond of the big guy. For all the angels and demons, we haven't heard shit from…" He waved vaguely at the sky.

"How long have you been hunting them? Your demons?"

"Didn't start out with demons. Well, it did, but for years it's just been vampires, evil spirits, assorted monsters. Saving small communities from wandering folk lore come to life, that sort of thing-." He ground his jaw, cutting himself off. He didn't intend to discuss deals with other demons. With her or anyone else.

"You have vampires?"

"You don't? Man. I need a vacation there. If we could take the time off."

"Aside from Lucifer's vacations topside, we don't have much crossover. Angels keep to themselves for the most part, fortunately, except Amenadiel."

"Why does Satan take vacations, again?"

"He gets bored in Hell. And, for some unfathomable reason, he seems to _enjoy_ your company. Humans. Crowds. Lately, the internet."

Dean blew air out his nose. "Castiel started out as a royal bastard. He's mellowed out some, but we're still a means to an end for him. Hopefully, when this apocalypse crap is dealt with, he'll go back home and leave us alone."

"Amen to that. _Angels_ , am I right?"

They shared a rueful smirk.

It crossed Dean's mind that it was _slightly_ nice to have someone else to share otherworldly complaints with.

Dean turned somber, looking away. "Demons are no picnic either. They kill people. A lot of people. If I find out you've murdered innocents, you're moving to the top of my hunting list."

Maze did appreciate an honest male. Frankly, she couldn't blame him. His demons sounded like a bag of dicks. "Good luck with that. I don't care if you believe me or not, but I haven't killed a living human. My talents lie...elsewhere. Lucifer's dad put a moratorium on killing humans, and it's about the only rule he follows."

Dean side-eyed her. "...So Lucifer hasn't killed anyone?"

"No." The answer was resolute.

He clenched his jaw. "Well, you're right, I don't believe you. But it is the kind of thing our Lucifer would brag about, if his demons are anything to go by. I barely believe Cas. He has ulterior motives, but as far as I can tell, he's protecting us, to some degree. He's telling some truths and hiding others." He held back information himself. There were any number of things he had no intention of volunteering, to her.

Maze stopped, sensing the mood change, and catching his arm. "You know, we could make each other's night a little better." She trailed her fingers down his soft flannel sleeve. Corded muscles tensed under the skin and fabric.

He stepped back, staring coldly. "I've been to Hell. I haven't had enough to drink today to have sex with a demon."

She bit her lip. "Wanna fix that?"

He breathed out. "Not tonight, No."

"Want to just get drunk? I bet we can fill our pockets with mini bottle shots without getting caught."

He considered it. "That, I can do."


	10. Coffee fixes Everything

Lucifer leaned casually against the kitchenette counter in new designer jeans that were one shade of blue above black with a lilac button-up that would look out of place on most other men. Maze made good on procuring suitable product, enabling him to help himself to a proper morning routine.

The view outside the hotel window was familiar in the pre-dawn light, but nothing else was.

A few hours of sleep and clean clothes were just what he needed to reset and be a functional Devil again. If they weren't home before tonight, he feared they'd all be staying in one of the fleabag motels Sam mentioned in passing. He decided then to stuff a robe in the bag Maze got them.

These _Winchesters_ were going to be the death of him, but at least they seemed to know what they were on about. He finally nicked the journal after they'd gone to sleep to peek at a few pages - it was well researched. It seemed there really were any number of actual, bloody monsters that roamed about the countryside here. Something to keep in mind.

If there was even a smidge of truth to the journal on how busy they'd been over the last few years, they did quite a bit of good work in their adventures, all with little to no reward and rarely even a 'thank you'. If the state of their living arrangements were any indication, 'hunting' was a job that did not pay out dividends of any kind. Yet the Winchesters seemed driven to do it. Lucifer made a reassessment of their caustic exteriors.

If any one of his demons went off on a topside-based killing spree, he would be forced to destroy it. He liked _their_ Lucifer less and less.

The smell of high-quality medium-roast drip coffee drew a slightly scruffy-looking Dean out of the bedroom he and his brother shared. He threw a flat 'mornin, Satan' at Lucifer and poured himself a cup of coffee. The paper bill that had been slipped under the door caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. There were four figures in the total.

" _Jesus Christ_. This is normal for you?" Being the King of Hell came with a lot more perks than Dean would have guessed.

The Devil smirked, sipping black coffee from his own mug. "I assure you, _Yeshua_ has nothing to do with it. He was quite serious about living in poverty. I keep bottles of wine in stock that cost more than-" he pointed at the bill, " _that._ "

Dean grumbled. "It's too early for this shit." Putting lips to coffee cup, he brightened. "Hey, this is good." He took a long pull, closing his eyes in near-bliss, cupping the mug in both hands like a lover. "Damn."

Lucifer nodded, pleased Dean let down his guard enough to possibly have a sociable morning. "You're welcome. There's no espresso machine, but this will do."

Cas stretched out on the couch, still in the trench coat. He looked like he was meditating rather than sleeping.

"Does he ever take off the coat?"

"Not that I've seen, no."

"How long have you and Cas been a thing?"

Dean did a spit-take. "Dude, you really need to work on your timing."

"What? You've put so many limits on me; I need to get my entertainment somewhere while we're here. _Obviously,_ I meant 'how long have you two been stuck with him'? Get him a properly sized trench coat, and it'd improve his probability of getting laid immensely."

"Yeah, I don't think he's here for that. Cas has been crawling up our asses since the seals have been breaking. Sometimes he's around, and sometimes he isn't. He hasn't exactly been endearing himself to us."

Cas sat up on the couch, hair somehow still in place. "I have not had anything to do with your asses."

Dean drained his mug with a happy sigh. "He's also incredibly literal. We've been chewing aspirin like candy since he found us."

Cas slipped straight to business. "Dean, have you tried inflicting pain on him yet?"

Lucifer waggled his eyebrows.

His icy blue look of annoyance transformed into something lighter, a wicked amusement. Dean nodded. "Sam said you had a reaction to him. So I get to test the theory too?"

Lucifer spread his arms wide. "Feel free to give it a shot."

Dean made a valiant attempt to slap the smirk off Lucifer's face. He was unsuccessful. He didn't even leave a mark behind.

"Nope. No 'ow.' I guess it's just Sammy." The Devil offered a mug. "Coffee, Sam? Cas?"

Maze appeared in a flash, a non-demon dagger in hand when she heard the slap. She had her hair up in a bun and a damp bath towel on, barely.

"Morning, Maze. We're fine."

Sam glared from the doorway, dressed and awake, but leaving space. "It must be the demon blood."

Maze and Lucifer both looked at him. She adjusted her towel.

Dean wrenched his gaze from the demon and shot his brother a warning scowl. "Sam."

He shrugged uncomfortably. "You're looking for an answer. It's as good as anything else."

Lucifer cocked his head. "I would have known if you were part-infernal." Hell-touched certainly, but not demonic. Perhaps his earlier estimate of an untapped power was incorrect, and Sam had been developing it.

"I...consumed demon blood. It gives me the power to force demons out of people with will alone."

Maze crossed her arms, looking more interested than disgusted. "That sounded an awful lot like present tense."

"It's a powerful offensive weapon." He seemed reluctant to say more about it, biting the inside of his cheek.

Dean swallowed, looking darkly at Lucifer. "And, it means we can defend ourselves against _you_."

"I have no interest in harming you. I hope you can get that through your thick skulls." Lucifer growled. "And you're _allowing_ your brother to contaminate himself? Amenadiel goes on at length about not mixing the divine and humans. I don't always agree with him, but in this case, he's right. It's a bad idea. Castiel, I'm disappointed in you."

Dean held back his surprise at the Devil chastising Cas over it but cut the angel off before he could say anything. "It makes the war we have to fight a little easier. We don't want to take down... _Lucifer_ , but we will if we have to, even if it means our lives."

He responded with a manicured, arched eyebrow. "You're a pair of optimists, aren't you?"

"We don't have a choice in the matter." Dean's stony face challenged him to question the statement.

It struck Lucifer in the gut like a ball of ice. It sounded a lot like his railings against his father. The tension coiled around them like snakes. "You have _free will_. You have a _choice_ -"

"Like _hell_ we do. Sure, we could _quit_ , but the price of 'free will' is consequence. We stop and more people we care about die. We keep going and less of them do."

Dean breathed out in a huff, then got more coffee, trying to settle his bitterness at the universe. He eyed Lucifer, sensing a point to be made. "Besides, what else would we do if we got out of the business of hunting monsters on a shoestring and prayers? _Retire?"_

The Devil nodded. Point taken. "My father really is a right bastard here too, isn't He?"

"Never met the guy. You got one up on us there."

Lucifer decided it didn't merit a response. He started a new pot of coffee and went scavenging for disposable travel cups.

They stood in silence for a few minutes. At some point, Maze re-appeared in street clothes, tossing their new bag on the couch next to Cas, making a beeline for the coffee machine. "Gimme."

Dean gestured Sam closer, "Hey, does this 'turn Lucifer into a pincushion' thing have a 'range'? Like with your girlfriend?"

"The Devil doesn't have a girlfriend. We haven't tested the range for Sam yet."

"I'm up for trying to smack you around some more. Sam?"

Sam stepped within a few feet of the pair. "Try again?"

Lucifer obligingly held out a hand, palm down, to Dean. "Avoid the hair this time?"

"Why, are you nervous now?" Dean slapped Lucifer's hand instead of his face. It stung his own but earned a gratifying wince from Lucifer, who looked displeased. As did Maze.

He rubbed his hand. "Right, shorter bubble than the Detective. Do me a solid and try not to let me get shot around Sammy. I don't know which Hell I'll end up in."

"Stop calling me Sammy."

Cas cleared his throat. "Two Lucifers in Hell at the same time would be just as catastrophic as them both being on earth at the same time. We'd likely draw an additional Michael, or worse."

Sam glowered. "Fine, I'll do my best to stay away from you." He got his coffee and moved off to the table to pack up the laptop. "We should get moving. Cas, can you go with them? I still don't want everyone packed into Baby. Get a cab or something, would you?"

Lucifer held up a finger. "Not to worry, I'll find us suitable transportation."

"Fine." Sam sipped his hot drink. Then went a little cross-eyed with a small moan. "Holy crap, dude. This is hotel coffee?"

* * *

Dawn hadn't broken quite yet, but the sky got a little lighter in the time it took to make the drive.

Sam and Dean, minus Cas, loitered in the visitor's parking deck for the LAPD, leaning against Baby. They weren't fond of walking into police stations, but the likelihood of their posters showing up out here was at least fairly low.

They finally had a moment alone again. Dean sipped his Devil coffee, not entirely convinced he hadn't done 'something' to it to make it better. He dialed Bobby. It went to voicemail. "Hey. We have good news and bad news. The bad news is, I guess, that your lead was right. We found-" He glanced at Sam. "Both a demon and something else out here. Cas caught up with us, and we're working on sending the- _it_ back, but it's not as simple as your run of the mill exorcism. I'd rather not leave everything on your answering machine, but it's...under control. For the moment. Uhm. We _might_ need you to pull out any books on Satan that we've discarded before because they seemed out of character. Like, any material you might have on why he might appear... _friendly_. Uhm. Okay, thanks, Bobby."

Sam smirked. "Bobby's head is going to explode."

"When isn't Bobby's head exploding? God knows how he hasn't died of a stroke by now."

"As long as we're in a bigger city, maybe I should swing by one of the local libraries. Any place here is bound to have more reference options."

"Let's find out what Bobby comes up with first, okay? I don't trust this place. Too sunny."

A low, smooth rumble echoed through the parking lot. Someone in a dusky emerald green convertible with classic lines had turned in. Dean recognized the deep-throated purr as something most likely obnoxiously American, not that he had a problem with that. He watched in appreciation for the ten seconds before he realized they were headed across the mostly empty lot towards him and Sam. The driver had black hair and a toothy smile. The demon rode shotgun. _Oh no_.

Lucifer parked with a huge grin. Maze waved.

Dean and Sam both stared. Dean walked around it. "Where the _hell_ did you get a '68 Shelby GT Mustang?"

"Like her? So did I. She practically screamed my name. Can't help the color, but the style is lovely, wouldn't you say?"

"Cas, did you let him steal this thing?"

Castiel blinked. "Is theft a problem now?"

"Come now; no harm has come to her. Should the original owner find her before our business is done here, I'll simply find another ride."

The car shut down, with no keys. Getting out, he reached into the back seat for a stack of donut boxes and box of coffee on top. "Cousin, be a darling and carry these?"

Maze exited, hauling their duffel bag and Lucifer's dry-cleaned suit and bag out of the trunk and looking at Dean expectantly. "You mind?"

"In case your stolen car gets re-stolen? Sure." He threw it in the trunk of the Impala.

Lucifer confidently strode ahead, leading the strange group inside.


	11. Donuts and Documents

Sam watched Lucifer lead the way with grudging, reluctant respect for his abilities, supernatural or otherwise. Even if he was an uncontrollable ass half the time.

The moment he set foot in the lobby, all eyes were drawn to him - before he even said a word - and away from the entourage. Sam and Dean would have gone with a subtle FBI badge flick, sign in with fake names and quietly slink around for as long as they could get away with. In a pinch, just one or the other could do it, or even break into buildings with as little fuss and attention as possible.

In glaring contrast, 'Hiding in plain sight' was Lucifer's favorite game.

Sam thought he saw Lucifer's power out and on display before, but he was wrong.

He swooped in like he owned the place, greeting a surprised, redheaded police woman behind the front desk by name, a huge smile on his face and eyes glittering. "I am genuinely pleased to see you again, Janine. I feel like it's been weeks! The earth here is brighter for your presence! Detective Espinoza is in, is he? I thought I spotted his depressing vehicle out in the lot. Visitors badges? Really? Can't myself and my friends here just skip the dangly-, oh well, then, alright, perhaps the sign-in? There's a girl!"

Without breaking eye contact with Janine, he passed four visitor badges behind him to a mildly amused Dean and Sam.

He leaned slightly over the leading edge of the reception desk, hands clasped lightly and hanging in her space. Sam heard his voice drop into velvety dark tones. "Aren't you just the loveliest desk wrangler? Shall I swing back by later to pick you up after your shift? Why yes, that is a _smashing_ diamond ring! Gift from your mum, correct? No? _Fiancee?_ (Tsk) Ah well, my loss I suppose, but you knew that already. Don't think I won't say goodbye on my way back out, darling."

Sam blinked. The tone was nowhere near as light as when Lucifer played his game on him. Like Satan already knew he wouldn't get anywhere with Sam but messed with him anyway. _Janine,_ on the other hand, blushed like a school girl, smiling from ear to ear and played with her hair. Ring or no ring, she was two seconds away from dragging Lucifer to the not-so-proverbial evidence room.

Sam was not in the mood to deal with Devil sex noises coming from the other side of the lab wall - because apparently, that was a thing. Today or _any_ other day. He tugged discreetly on Lucifer's sleeve.

Lucifer sighed dramatically. "I suppose I should be getting on with it. Enjoy a breakfast pastry, Janine."

He retrieved the stack of _Colorado Donut_ boxes from Cas, passing one to Janine. Lucifer extended an arm to his crew to wave them along. He could have been a parade marshal.

The Devil walked among the officers of the LAPD, and none of them knew it.

With donuts and coffee.

Sam and Dean followed him, with Maze and Cas keeping to the back down metal stairs and into the open-space bullpen, as though he did it every day. Which, Sam guessed, he did. This precinct was possibly the most modern they'd set foot in since they had started to fight monsters in podunk towns.

While Cas wore his usual 'why am I here?' face, Maze watched the sparsely populated floor for anyone who looked too interested in the parade of weirdos. The visitor badges deterred most of it.

Lucifer left the second flat box in what Sam assumed to be the Lieutenant's office, which stood unoccupied at 7 am and should have been kept locked. Lucifer stopped to jot down something on a sticky note, leaving it on the box of treats. He returned with a mischievous grin, pulling the door shut again.

Sam's hazel eyes pointedly tracked back to the desk. "What did you _do_?" Dean didn't miss it either, squinting at the little yellow square through glass windows.

"Left a little present."

Sam shook his head, ruffling his almost too-long hair. Irritably, he asked, "Which was?"

Lucifer feigned innocence, his eyes dancing. "I just noticed they're working on a tricky murder case _my_ Detectives solved a couple of months back. With my invaluable help, natch. I left the name of the criminal on the note in there. They should be able to put two and two together. No wonder they're behind, eh? No crime-solving Devil here to lend a hand."

"Seriously?" A crime-solving celestial in his own world, _and_ here? "What's in it for you?"

"Does one need a reason to do something nice in this world?"

Lucifer turned away, a bounce in his step, toward the center of the floor. Detective Dan glanced up from his desk uncertainly, doing a double take when he saw who it was. "...Lucifer?"

"Detective Douche! I come bearing confectionery gifts! You're here bright and early, aren't you? All things considered?"

Dan glowered. "Yeah, well, thanks to you, I slept on the couch. Lucy didn't appreciate it when I showed up practically passed out before making it in the door. Great example for my kids too."

Lucifer scanned the desk surface, and his eyes jerked to a halt where a photo of Chloe and Trixie should have been on the not-ex-husband's desk. His chest tightened. Instead, the silver frame held a black haired woman and two little girls. The older one bore enough of a resemblance to Trixie that his heart flipped over. The child had long dark pigtails and a secret-keeping smile. He felt himself reaching out to touch the edge of the frame but pulled back, turning the motion into a casual shuffling of the box of goodies.

For the first time since leaving to look for his demon, he considered he might not _get_ back home. _Which is ridiculous. Of course, I'll see them again._ To be stranded in a world without Chloe and her spawn didn't bear thinking on.

Sam caught the flash of longing on Lucifer's face before the Devil brought his dark eyes back to Dan and quickly smoothed over his expression.

The mask of playboy indifference settled back into place. "Ah, yes. Well, It looks like you found a lovely woman who actually puts up with you. Good job, Daniel."

Dan stretched at his desk, glancing at the family photo. "Yeah, yeah, I'm a pain the ass. Do you know her too?"

"Sorry, not the foggiest. She doesn't look familiar. If she ever showed up at my club, I'm _sure_ I'd try to get her attention. You _definitely_ married up."

"Thanks? I think?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. _And he was right back to deflecting._

Dean cleared his throat.

Lucifer gestured toward a walled glass room. "Oh, right, we're just paying a quick visit to miss Lopez. Looks like the lab is still in the same place if you'll excuse us?"

"Is this about the cult crap from the basement?"

"Daniel, if you want a donut, just say so."

"...I want a donut."

"Well, this box is for miss Lopez."

"The whole thing?"

"Unless you feel like hauling your sweet ass along to help?"

Dan rolled his grey-blue eyes dramatically, but got up, sliding away from his folder-laden desk. "It's too early for paperwork anyway; maybe I can be useful."

"First time for everything."

He ignored that, in favor of grabbing a pen and notepad. "I'm kind of dying to figure out your gimmick anyway. This other 'Dan and Ella' bit. I mean, it must be fun running around telling everyone you're the Devil, but this just seems like an unnecessary layer of complication."

* * *

Ella hopped up from her stool, waving excitedly. She patiently waited for people to actually clear the door before hugging Lucifer, who held up the donuts above her head. "Er. Yes. Nice to see you again. Some things never change, eh?"

"Hey, guys!" She threw her arms around a bewildered Dean next, who tolerated it with about as much patience as Lucifer. "I'm sorry I didn't see you guys come in, I'm a little frazzled this morning. Everything from last night is kind of a blur."

Sam actually hugged back, letting her enthusiasm and warmth wash over him. Their difference in height put her head at his low ribs. "Dude, you're super tall."

"Thanks?"

She greeted Castiel next. "Hey, Cas? Right?" Castiel looked helplessly at Lucifer, who smiled and shrugged. He simply duplicated Lucifer's move from yesterday and patted her gently on the head. "Hello."

Dean stepped out of her range. "Not a Cupid, right?"

Cas stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. "Of course not. There are no female Cupid's. And she would not be wearing clothing."

Ella nodded. "Method actors all around, huh? I know who Satan thinks he is, but who or what is 'Castiel'?"

Cas blinked. "I am a soldier of the Lord."

She cocked her head. "Okay, cool. Weird group, but cool."

Dean grumbled. "Tell me about it."

Maze stepped out of range, finding a corner shelf to lean against.

"Oh! Donuts! _And_ Coffee! You're the bee's knees, Lucifer!"

"One should always show up with a proper bribe, don't you agree?"

" _Mmmmmmfff._ " Ella picked a raspberry-filled confection covered in powdered sugar and stuffed it in her mouth, rolling her eyes heavenward. Dan not-so-sneakily leaned in to grab one before they were demolished.

Ella's T-shirt was dark purple with stars and gold lettering that simply said 'Can't Stop The Signal.'

Dean, thankful there wasn't something Devil-related about the donuts, shrugged and started to pick one up.

Lucifer pointed, "You want the square one in that corner."

"O-kay.." It had crumbs and whipped frosting on top, with apple pie filling inside. Dean squinted at Lucifer around the treat, who just grinned and offered the open box to Sam next.

Even Maze eventually succumbed to temptation, snagging a dark chocolate and raspberry thing.

Ella beamed, selecting a second. "Bribe accepted! The Devil offers the best temptations, doesn't he?" She waggled her eyebrows at him. "Sexy too." Ella stuffed another donut in her mouth and turned to a file cabinet.

Dan snagged a napkin, wiping stray chocolate off his face. "So what are you looking for? No body means no case for us. Not that I want to get any more involved in whatever this insanity is."

Sam responded, "You really don't."

Ella handed over a stack of sheets. "These are copies of the originals. I have samples of the paint from the floor, but it seemed pretty Home Depot to me. Even the candles looked like they were from a Halloween store. There are a couple places near the site they could be from."

Cas leaned over to grab the top sheet. "Someone was dumb enough to post demon summoning spells online."

Lucifer scanned the next one off the stack. "Enochian?"

"Yes. But it's a mix of words. It's a wonder they pronounce anything correctly."

Dan licked his finger. "Pinocchio?"

Most of the occupants of the room winced. Ella crossed her arms. "Well, it's not Klingon. And it's not like you can actually summon demons? Riiiiiight?"

Lucifer and Cas glanced at each other. Lucifer said, "Not in my world, normally."

Sam coughed. "Maybe we should just take this and go. I'll need a few hours to go over this and make sure it's the same as what we...usually see. Was there anything else? We have to find the cultist too. We might need to verify _why_ he tried to do this and make sure he doesn't try again."

Ella closed her drawer. "Why? What could happen?"

At the same time, Cas responded with "More demons." Sam and Dean said "Nothing."

Lucifer fished out a donut himself. "Nothing a little apocalypse won't solve. Hopefully, you lads can avoid that."


	12. Questions

Chloe Decker was _not_ amused.

Maze, her roommate, was AWOL. The phone sat quietly in the kitchen - a few missed calls, but none of them were Maze herself, looking for her phone. After Lucifer requested her help finding the damn thing, he vanished off the face of the Earth too. She pulled the same strings as before, and his phone hadn't been active on any network since it, too, vanished like Maze.

He hadn't replied to email, he wasn't in his penthouse, and even the club bartender on duty claimed not to have seen him.

It wasn't that weird for him to be out of touch for a few days, but her roommate was missing too, according to Lucifer himself, before he tried out the same disappearing act his ex-bartender had.

On a whim, she asked Dan if he'd seen Lucifer. Her ex was more than happy to have the Devil out of his hair for another unexplained trip.

Not that he owed her an explanation. Still. This was bugging her, picking and dragging and itching at her Detective instincts.

In a fit of curiosity, she used Maze's phone to dial Amenadiel, who also didn't respond. His phone, at least, rang somewhere. The so-called 'brother' of Lucifer's didn't answer.

It was getting late. Trixie hummed to herself, doing homework. Chloe sipped cheap wine Lucifer would be mortified at, fighting over whether or not her stomach roiled with valuable instincts or simple paranoia.

 _All_ the people she knew to be associated with Lucifer had vanished, except one.

Almost at the same time.

It could just be a coincidence, right?

Someone rapped sharply on her door, making Chloe jump. She pulled her pajama top straight, setting the wine glass down. "Lucifer?"

Trixie looked up hopefully.

Except, Lucifer didn't knock.

Like, ever.

She opened her door to find Charlotte Richards, of all people, wringing her hands on Chloe's doorstep, long hair up in a tight bun and still wearing a business suit from probably earlier today. "Have you seen Lucifer?"

Chloe expected the question even less than the woman. "No, I thought he just ran out of town for a few days. He doesn't tell me his plans."

"But he-enjoys your company. Which I still don't quite get, but I thought perhaps you'd seen him. This body isn't - I mean, I can't find him." She squinted, looking over Chloe's shoulder. "Are you hiding him?"

Chloe blinked several times and looked back at her glass of wine on the coffee table. _How much had she had already? One glass or two?_ "I don't know what to tell you, Mrs. Richards. Do you want to come in and talk? I haven't seen him or Maze."

Charlotte waved vaguely, passing the threshold and stalking across the floor rather than sitting. "Oh, I don't care about Mazikeen. But I can't find my boys. Amenadiel isn't responding either. I don't think he's here."

"He's... uhm. _Not._ Here." Chloe cocked her head, not sure if she should offer wine or not if it was reacting with her system this weirdly. "When did you see them last?"

"I went up to the penthouse, and he wasn't there. Not answering these phone things. I even tried praying to them, but it's not working. I didn't think it'd work with Lucifer, because he doesn't _listen_ to his true name anymore, but Amenadiel is my oldest." She wrung her hands more, pacing rapidly back and forth.

Trixie paused in her math. "Mom? I think she's had too much sugar."

Chloe scooped up her glass and dumped the rest down the drain. "Oldest friend? I don't really talk to him that much, sorry. I was thinking about doing some more discreet police work tomorrow when I get into work, but I've never known Lucifer not to handle himself. I'm guessing they're just off together somewhere. Doing whatever crazy things Lucifer does with his brother."

"Right, yes, of course." She nodded to herself. "Maybe they went down to Hell. But they wouldn't."

"Down to...yeah, never mind."

"How does Lucifer do this all the time?"

"Do what?"

She flailed, pacing and huffing. "You _people_. You're so difficult."

Chloe looked down into her empty wine glass, then reached over and dumped the bottle into the sink. Maybe Lucifer _was_ onto something, with his expensive wines. "Can you just tell me how I can help?"

Charlotte halted in her pacing. "Where does Lucifer go when he doesn't want to be found?"

"He's mentioned Vegas, but Amenadiel doesn't seem like the type, frankly."

She looked hopeful for a second, then puzzled over it. "What's a Vegas?"

"Las...Vegas? With the lights and gambling?" _And hookers._

"That's here, though, right? On earth?"

"...Nevada?"

"That's a yes, right? Okay, no, I don't think he's there. "

"...O-kay."

"Gah. You're no help at all." She turned and walked back out the door, leaving a bewildered Chloe watching the other woman's back.

Against the lighter door frame, she could have sworn she saw a curl of smoke in the porch light. When she looked after Charlotte, it had vanished.

* * *

Heading back out to the cars, all before Police Lieutenants pulled in to work for the day, Sam side-eyed Lucifer through loose bangs, "Seriously, you're creeping me out with this good guy routine." To Castiel, "You don't personally know this particular _cousin_ of yours at all?"

Cas made as much of a face as he ever does, unchanging trench coat swirling in the light morning breeze. "No."

"That's it? Just, _no_?"

Cas sighed long-sufferingly. "Angels are 'equipped' with a certain amount of knowledge installed by our Lord. We pick up more along the way, of course. What I know of 'Lucifer Morningstar' was given to me at the time of my creation, and is extended as the need arises. I simply did not access it before yesterday, and was therefore unaware I needed it until that time."

Lucifer nodded and smiled in a way he probably thought was helpful.

Cas continued, "We are given knowledge that we require in our duties as celestial beings of our realm. Or realms, sometimes. Archangels, such as Lucifer, when he was Samael, start with more knowledge than strictly 'required'. This can lead to problems, but none are unforeseen."

Lucifer glared. "Do _not_ call me that. Surely Dad didn't 'foresee' my fall. Or he would have prevented the lead-up."

Flatly, Castiel responded, "God is all-knowing. Of course, He foresaw it."

Dean wished Sam hadn't said anything.

Lucifer clenched his jaw. " _True believer_ , eh, Castiel? And Dad simply choose not to pull me aside and have a little chat with me, then? Perhaps a 'Hello, son, lay off the sodding questions _before_ I send Michael on over with a vengeance, throwing you over the side of the Silver City to rule Hell and burning your body to a painful crisp."

Naturally, Sam pursued it. "You didn't lead a rebellion against...your - Heaven?"

"I want neither Heaven _nor_ Hell. I may not have the high opinion Daddy's boy over there does, but even I'm not _stupid_ enough to go toe to toe with whatever the hell Dad _is._ He and Mum created us. Dad could end it _all -_ Life, the universe, everything - without lifting a metaphorical finger, without so much as a friendly reach around."

Sam tripped over nothing, recovering.

Dean got back to the chase. "Cas, what aren't you telling us?"

Cas paused in his step, forcing everyone else to stop and turn to him. "What do you want to know?"

"Starting at the beginning might help."

Castiel looked askance, but simply said, "in the beginning, there was complete darkness, and God said, 'let there be light.' He willed the universe into being, and within a time too short for humans to comprehend, dust scattered and began to slowly coalesce into stars-."

Lucifer audibly scoffed. "Already glossing over a few things, are we?"

Cas' stony expression altered from mild annoyance to mild curiosity. "Such as?"

"You were created well after that point, were you not?"

"Regardless, God created everything we see."

Dean grumbled. "That wasn't what I was asking about."

"Can you _imagine_ how boring it'd be to wait around _billions_ of years for all that star-forming to just happen? Is your Lucifer not 'The Lightbringer'?"

Everyone save Maze regarded him with more than a touch of skepticism. The angel stepped closer, squinting as if trying to see directly past Lucifer's glamour to his true face. "No. He's not."

The Devil bore a look of dissatisfaction. " _I_ lit the stars. _I_ gathered the 'dust.' The time table skipped over a number of billions of years - no point in simply waiting around for everything to 'coalesce' on its own. I think I'd lose my mind."

Sam swallowed. "Maybe you're the only one."

"Pardon?"

"Maybe there's only one real 'God' and one real 'Lucifer.' The rest of us, and them-" He gestured at Maze and Cas, "-and us, presumably, have duplicates."

"I assure you, there are no duplicate souls in Hell."

Sam thought hard. "No, but realms or dimensions or whatever still have populations that go to those places. Maybe our Lucifer is more like a...highest order of demon, but still too powerful for our Demon Blade to work on him."

"Cas?"

Castiel regarded them uncertainly. "Perhaps. It doesn't alter the path of the apocalypse, however. Nor does it change the fact that he should _not_ come into contact with our caged Lucifer. That much is absolute. Lilith herself may become interested in him-" glancing over at the non-caged Devil - "the longer he's here."

Lucifer cocked his head. "Lilith? How many demons are you dealing with, exactly?"

"Too many. Long story." Dean had to ask, "What's this about 'mum'? God has a wife? Are all of you attached to someone?"

Lucifer's voice tightened with a touch of anger. "Right. Yes. The Goddess of all creation was cast into Hell too by delightful Dear Old Dad. She escaped Hell and is currently residing in the body of a woman named Charlotte. Another pain my arse that I have to finish dealing with when I get back home."

Sammy rounded on Lucifer, anger in his tone and eyes flashing. "You told us that you don't use vessels!"

Lucifer regarded him coolly in return, turning to face Sam, eyes nearly level. "Quite. _I_ don't. The body she's in had just perished due to murder, very conveniently close by to myself. The Goddess claimed the body upon it's expiration. Given her reputation, _that_ soul likely is in Hell herself. I can drop souls into freshly dead bodies, but frankly it's more trouble than it's worth, _and_ requires a trip to Hell, which I cannot achieve in my present wingless state."

He went on, adding with a quiet purr and a seductive grin right in Sam's face, "However, this is _still_ my own scrumptious body you're viewing, if I can ever talk you into a personal tour, of which I'd gladly return the favor. Only disembodied _souls_ can assume a new body, and only with deliberate assistance. Not angels, nor demons."

Sam swerved away from Lucifer with a grumble, moving ahead. "Why do you keep messing with me?"

"Because you make it so _easy_ , my dear. It's a little rare to find human males taller than myself, especially one as fit as you." He ran his dark eyes up and down Sam, sparing a dark eye over Dean, before returning to Sam. "Not that I'd turn down your brother, if he changes his mind. Hmmm. Those jeans do very nice things to your form, Sammy, but I bet you knew that already." He had a fun new thought, smiling at it. "Oh, I wonder if there's a more sexually flexible set of 'Sam and Dean' back home?"

Dean's half-amusement at Lucifer teasing Sam quickly flattened when the Devil threw a sultry look over his shoulder at Dean. It imploded and burned entirely at the rhetorical question. "You _cannot_ be serious."

Lucifer kept smiling, oblivious or uncaring of Dean's distaste. "Mm. That rough voice of yours alone makes me want to spend some time _hunting_ your counterparts. Where did you say you boys are from?"

"Jesus Christ. Do you ever stop?"

"Wrong deity! Really now, how hard can it be?. Also, why would I _want_ to stop?" Back at the Mustang and Baby, Lucifer slipped a baggie from a jeans pocket, flashing it. "Joint? I nicked some from the evidence processing desk on the way to the loo. Not the best quality, but it'll do in a pinch."

Sam and Dean, as one, looked over at Cas, who shrugged. "Why are you looking at me? I don't want any."

Maze swung wide to the passenger side of the Mustang, apparently unperturbed by the conversation thus far. "So, where are we headed?"

Sam and Dean hung back while Lucifer lit up a stolen joint, taking a few puffs. "Not too bad after all." at them, "Got any haunts this way?"

Dean opened his car door. "We don't normally come out this far west. Never with this much company. Bobby might be able to suggest someone we can crash with, but I'd rather not subject anyone else associated with us to you. He's probably losing his shit over the message I left him about you two as it is."

"Inside man, eh? Will we be having a chat then?"

" _Definitely_ not. Pick a direction somewhere quiet. We'll follow you while Sam and I have a _private_ chat with our friend.

—-

Bobby picked up this time. "What the hell, Dean?"

"Glad you're home this time. I take it you got the message?"

"That pile of garbage? What're you idjits up to now? You can't have a demon with no vessel."

"Apparently, you can, but she ain't from around these parts. She was sucked up here from-" Dean looked over at Sam. Cas babysat the underworlders again in the other car.

"The summoning crossed planes. She was taken from her world."

"Say what now?"

Sam added, "She's from another place with demons that are embodied differently than ours."

"Well, that's just great. So you need to unsummon a demon in a body it's attached to? I doubt I have much of that kind of literature. Where do you have her holed up? Can't you just kill or trap her and be done with this?"

 _Thank gods they took separate cars._ "Cas insists that they shouldn't wind up in 'our' Hell, otherwise we would have done that already, or tried to."

Bobby's voice came with a pause and a question that held no humor. "...They?"

Sam sighed. "If it matters, her name is Mazikeen, might turn something up. After she was taken, her boss came _over_ , looking for her, himself."

"Tell me you aren't sayin' what I think you're sayin'."

"We have an extra Lucifer now, but topside. So far, he's...not what we expected. He's... _helpful._ "

"Are you on drugs, Sammy?"

Dean rubbed his face. "We needed to find out if you have _anything_ at all on alternate dimensions. Any references at all to 'Lucifer' that sounded out of character for the one locked in the cage down in Hell. _Castiel_ believes Satan isn't going to hurt anyone here but that's a hell of a claim to just believe. We have him sticking to Satan's ass like glue. I don't trust either of them further than I can throw them, which is to say, 'not at all'. For now, at least, he's following our lead and not hairing off."

The scoff came over the line unconcealed. "You suddenly trusting the angel?"

"No, but at least we have Cas as a celestial speed bump between us and them. Oh, and Cas banished another angel who was with Lucifer. Haven't seen hide nor hair of him since. So add 'Amenadiel' to things to look for. He can't teleport like Cas, so there may be a tall black guy who is lost somewhere on earth going by that name."

"All right. That much I can keep an eye out for, make some calls. If he's anything like Cas, his behavior should make him stand out from a crowd - Anything else?"

Sam leaned over. "Mazikeen's knives are Hell-forged. They can inflict injury on _both_ Cas and Lucifer. Cas knew about them before we did, and hoped to 'borrow' them while banishing both Lucifer and his friend, temporarily. Of course, he didn't tell us about his plan before executing it, and only the angel was banished. Cas wanted her blades as a potential backup plan in case the remaining seals are broken, and we have to face a free Lucifer."

Sam's brain started to hurt. "I don't think Cas expected the other Lucifer himself to show up and start tearing around, looking for his kidnapped demon. I don't think Cas is responsible either, just trying to take advantage of the situation."

"Oh, and the angels, including our new Lucifer have or had physical wings, but we haven't seen them, so I don't know if we're talking bat wings or bird."

Dean added, "It may not matter, but he adds the surname 'Morningstar.'"

Bobby could be heard scratching notes and typing. He sighed. "Fine. Great. Anything else? Info that will help me narrow down my search - not that I have much to reference on this."

Dean exchanged a look with Sam. "He's British, acts like an adolescent on crack half the time and an over-sexed asshole the other half."

"...You sure you aren't smoking anything?"

"He's been attempting to get in Sam's pants non-stop. Not that I didn't find it a little funny at first but it's well past obnoxious at this point."

"...the Devil is a homo?"

"Bi-, apparently. But you wanted details. He does have huge scars on his back where he lost his wings, supposedly."

"Do I want to know how you know that?"

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're keeping him close to us, out of necessity. He's a lot to handle, but at least he's not trying to murder anyone. The opposite, actually."

Bobby sounded tired. "Oh?"

He didn't want to say the next part out loud. At all. Less so than even the personality traits. "On his world, he works with the LAPD, as some kind of freaking _police consultant_. I'm losing my mind, Bobby."

"What does his demon do then, tap-dance?"

"Tends his bar."

"You boys are going to owe me a _case_ of Jack before the end of this."

"I think we'll have to make a trip up to your place and all have a few drinks - _after_ things go back to normal and he goes home. In the meantime, we're going to try and crack the mystery on how the summoning worked. The incantation appears to be different than normal, and we can't locate the original source of it, but we got a hold of the pages that the summoner or summoners used. Maybe Sam can figure out who downloaded them."

"Oh? Where'd you get those? Email some copies."

Sam supplied, "... From some of Lucifer's alternate universe _friends_ at the LAPD. They didn't know him here, but he knew _them_ enough to turn the charm factor up to 11. He's got some kind of compulsion power over people, but it's not absolute. Oh, and he manifests fire when he's angry. Haven't seen it since we found him, but it radiated real heat, so it's not illusionary. He held up Cas against a wall, so he may not be that much of a deterrent, but he's all we got."

Bobby muttered something unintelligible.

Dean eyed Lucifer who waved cheerfully at him from the top-down Mustang. He hadn't really been paying attention to where they were going, but they were in a parking lot. "What was that, Bobby?

"You boys know you need to survive long enough to stop the apocalypse, right?"

Sam wore a bemused expression, looking up and through the Impala's windshield. Dean winced and looked, expecting more fresh hell. "Call you back, Bobby. I'd rather not have him in hearing range of you."

Dean hung up.

They were at an antique bookstore.

Stepping out, he glanced around. "...I'm somehow amazed we aren't at a strip club."

Lucifer played with a cigarette from somewhere. Maybe they had been in the stolen car. "Don't be ridiculous. We should wait at least until 10 am for a half-decent strip club. I've made purchases from this place for my own private library - which I might add you two would be extremely interested in."

Dean grumbled but slammed his door shut. He wasn't sure if he was happy or worried the Devil was starting to act his age.


	13. Black Smoke

Lucifer sensed something on the threshold of the building. A presence that teased the edges of his perception, bearing the familiar taint of Hell, even if it wasn't _his_ Hell. It carried the tang of something distinctly evil, shadowing the physical world but not yet in it.

Maze scanned the building carefully but didn't feel the same thing he picked up, just noticing his body language. Tension built in her shoulders, echoing his. She exchanged a glance with him, shaking her head in a negative.

Dean sensed it too. "What's wrong?"

The Devil straightened his shirt sleeves reflexively, continuing through the door if only to get out of the immediate public eye while internally cursing his own lack of a straight face. It wouldn't do to let the underworld residents here know he could sense them around. Failing to warn the humans with him, however… "Something's taken an interest."

Sam cursed under his breath, patting his unseasonably heavy canvas jacket for something. "Where?"

Dean spun around, feeling rather than hearing a pop of air. "Cas?"

Castiel had left them without warning.

"Dammit."

Maze gestured. "Keep moving."

A bored woman with short, curly blue hair behind the front registers ran an eye over them but didn't greet them.

Lucifer moved purposefully as if he knew which section he wanted to be in. Mostly, he just wanted to angle them into an unpopulated part of the bookstore, which turned out to be all of it this time of the morning.

The place was full of old books, as the sign indicated, and musty. Under normal circumstances, Lucifer could lose himself for days in a good antique book store. The smell of aging paper wrapped around him like an old friend, another reminder of home. Soft, old carpeting muffled their steps, interspersed with floor mats and chipped wooden shelves that had seen better days.

The brothers eyed every swirl of dust in the morning sunlight that came through the high windows like it might reach out and bite them. Lucifer didn't envy them their profession. Them not feeling perfectly safe in a building loaded with just books made _him_ tense up.

The atmosphere reminded Lucifer unpleasantly of a quiet church. "You boys have protection against demonic possession, correct?"

Dean shot him a glance, "Yeah, how did you know?"

"You seem prepared. It was just a guess. Makes the next part easier since I don't have to worry about you."

"Makes what easier?" His eyes narrowed.

"Fair warning, I might have to drop the glamour. I'd prefer your permission to do so if I'm challenged here, as I believe I'm about to be. Sam, please keep your distance, regardless."

Dean twitched. The statement was probably the most polite thing he'd heard coming from Satan so far. Making eye-contact with Sam, he nodded. "Done."

Lucifer threw a critical eye at them, more serious than they'd seen him up until now. "What's your protection?"

Dean hesitated to reveal the trick, but it wasn't much of a secret in what was left of the hunting community. "Anti-possession tattoos. Works better than painting the damn things constantly. Sam knows the exorcism incantation by heart."

Without warning, the air grew thick.

The Devil, for once refrained from making a snarky comment. "Clever. You see anything, Maze?"

She shook her head, one curved blade held at the ready all the same. Dean didn't like not knowing if they were about to fight a war on two sides of Hell. Another look at Sam confirmed his brother felt the same way. Cas taking off didn't help their nerves either.

This part, sans Devil, was something they knew, something they could deal with. There would be no time to lay a circle, but they were not defenseless by any means.

The four of them stood in a square, Lucifer facing back the way they came. "Ah." _There it is._ He took two long steps away from the others. Casually shifting his weight as if he hadn't a care in the world, he stood in designer jeans and fitted button-up as if they were royal raiments of Hell.

He was _force_ restrained. Power boiled below the surface, reined in by will alone. Energy became a palpable field surrounding Satan.

Without preamble, the blue-haired woman from the counter sauntered up to him with a sly smile. She blinked, rolling fully black eyes up at him, ignoring the others. She had fair skin and stood shorter than Lucifer by a good foot. Chin up, she opened her mouth to speak, a saucy tilt in her posture.

If she hoped for a flicker of surprise from him, she didn't get it.

Lucifer cut her off before she got out a single word, his voice flat with utter command that would not, nor could not be denied.

"Depart."

Released power impacted her, the word barely clearing his throat before she reacted instantaneously. It was like a drop of water condensing on the surface of a lake dam, a mere fraction of the total.

Her head snapped backward, black smoke flying out of her mouth in a rush, coiling around Lucifer like an unfriendly snake. The woman collapsed to the ground in a boneless heap, unconscious. He made no move toward her, maintaining an air of indifference.

Maze waited silently, poised and rock-solid. The hunters behind him held their places, equally unsurprised by the living smoke, if not by the fastest exorcism they had ever seen. Lucifer's ears informed him that Sam mouthed an incantation in his throat, not yet vocalizing it. Latin.

The opaque smoke curled menacingly. Lucifer wore a bored expression, regarding it as he would a screaming toddler mid-tantrum. He examined his fingernails, pointedly rubbing a thumb over his onyx and silver ring. Heat reflections without fire wavered in the air around him, throwing mirage shimmers.

The demon contracted in a frustrated dance but could not get close to him, breaking apart and re-forming in the air. It snapped around in a flat circle then hovered, radiating sulking anger. He sensed it 'look' toward Maze, then decide not to mess with her. Wise choice.

He cocked an eyebrow, voice emotionless. "Next time send me someone worth talking to."

The smoke collected in a stream and began to descend back toward the woman on the floor, a last panicked rallying attempt. _Idiot._

" _DEPART_."

Lucifer cocked his head minutely, and his skin flamed red, every visible inch turned from human to not. Sam and Dean only saw his back, the stylishly coiffed black hair vanishing to reveal cracked and burned skin, furrowed and raw. While not directed at them, Sam and Dean instinctively shrank back from the change in appearance all the same.

The smoke spasmed violently as if such a thing could be physically strangled. It abandoned the girl, spinning down through the floor in a screaming burst that left no marks behind.

The moment passed. Lucifer began to turn, but stopped and quickly settled his visage before doing so, a burned and scarred cheekbone rotating to the side before he caught himself. The visible heat waves vanished like a kitchen gas burner being cut off, metaphysical walls again slamming back into place.

Groomed hair re-appeared exactly as it had been moments before, and impossibly soft dark brown eyes met the hunters, who straightened. The Devil _hmmf'd._ "You two alright?"

Sam gazed at the floor where the demon passed through it, presumably back to Hell. "We're fine." He dragged out the _fine_ , wondering why he even asked.

Dean would swear on his grave Lucifer looked relieved.

Lucifer took gratified note that the brothers didn't let their guard down. Nor had they cowered. Tense and back to back, they hadn't moved an inch, save to watch their surroundings. Even Maze had a bare crook of a smile indicating she noticed as well.

Dean had a handful of salt from somewhere, a small holy water flask held in the other. They really were _hunters._ Lucifer made a mental note to double check his home realm hadn't _actually_ grown vampires and werewolves too without his knowledge of it. The things _shouldn't_ exist at all, anywhere, yet they roamed this world seeking human prey.

He stepped forward and bent to touch the girl on the floor, cradling the back of her head. She breathed in sharply, snapping awake with panic in her face. Eyes a shade of azure to rival her hair sought him, focused on him. He took her hand with a gentle squeeze. "How are you feeling?"

Dean nearly bolted toward them, then held himself, his instincts in all-out war of the _Devil_ crouching over a helpless woman. Who he also just potentially saved the life of. Dean shook himself. He'd been doing this years longer than Sammy and some habits were harder to kill than others.

She blinked up at the ceiling again, confused as to why she lay on the floor. She finally focused on Lucifer's face. "What happened?"

"Fainting spell, perhaps?"

Dean squinted. _The devil doesn't lie._ An actual fainting 'spell' _would_ make her pass out. And he answered her with a question, not a statement of fact.

She sat up, pale and shivering. "I don't faint."

Lucifer supported her shoulders, helping her stand. "Why don't you get something to drink? Maybe some fresh air?"

She nodded, woozy but her color began to return. "Weird. Yeah." He held her weight until she let go on her own, shuffling back to the front desk.

Lucifer waited until she got out of sight again and his demeanor shifted once again with barely a warning. "So, where do we start?"

Sam crossed his arms, finally relaxing his vigilance. "What just happened?"

"Sammy, love, I needn't a spell to command demons."

Maze didn't comment.

He grunted but refrained from adding _don't call me Sammy_. "Why didn't you let her speak?"

"Information is a two-way street. Demons here don't need any from me. That one was weak, probably attempting to confront me without orders to do so to gain advantage over another demon, as that seems to be the status quo here. Any information exchange would be to her and their benefit, not ours."

"Still."

He sighed. "I imagine it would have gone along the lines of 'ally yourself with me and you can take over the world before my Lucifer gets free of his cage,' prattling on about flesh bodies versus _vessels_. Honestly, I'm not expecting much else from a low-level demon. I'd prefer they think I can't be reasoned with as it might buy us time to find Amenadiel."

To the air, he asked, "Cas?"

No response.

"Does he do this often? Flit off with nary a word?"

Sam, deeming it safe to proceed with the original plan, dropped his laptop bag on a nearby table, pulling out notebooks and papers. "All the time."

"How annoying."

"You can't just...talk to him telepathically?"

He shrugged. "I could try praying, but I'd rather not. Might send up a signal to every other angel that I'm here."

Oh, there's a fun thought.

"You think they wouldn't know already, through Cas?"

"They might know, but they also might not. Cas may not have been inclined to share that information with his immediate family, assuming that if Dad wanted them to know, He would have informed them Himself. For now anyway. And Cas seems to like me about as much as his closer siblings." He appeared unbothered by the idea. "On the bright side, Cas hasn't tried to actually smite me, again likely assuming that Dad doesn't give a flying feck either direction about my presence here since He hasn't just bodily sent me back already."

Sam's headache threatened to return. "And, the red skin thing, 'full crispy'?"

"Any use of my powers could be dangerous here. You seem to have a rather lot of demons topside, and I'd rather they not think they have a true assessment of what I can do before they take a shot against me _en mass_. _That_ display just then was still dialed down from 'full,' but it tends to be enough to crack humans around a bit."

The younger brother looked up from setting up the laptop, freezing in place. "You don't mean they have a chance?"

"Why, Sammy dear, I didn't think you cared." His smile faded quickly though. "Without my wings, it's...within the realm of possibility. They don't need to know that." This place got worse all the time.

Maze would ever be his rock. "I won't let that happen."

"Thanks, love, but those daggers may not work on smoke. We may want to consider the tattoos ourselves if we're stuck here much longer. I should only need Sammy nearby to get one." He tilted his head slightly. "Provided, of course, the ink doesn't just bleed right back out again once he's not in range. Bother."

She had a small tattoo of an arrow herself, on her right arm, but didn't deign to explain how it got there.

Dean idly wondered if she had others. He snapped out of it. "Well, both the over- and underworld know you're here now. Will your angel friend be alright?"

"As long as he still has working wings, he should be able to handle any of your demons." Lucifer had his phone out, considering. "As long as he knows what to look for. I need to ask Cas if he can tell whether a human is possessed or not by sight. Amenadiel may not know what to look for if a less cocky demon presents itself in a human."

* * *

The blue-haired woman seemed recovered, generally leaving them to themselves and tending to her shop duties.

Over the next few hours, Lucifer had collected a small stack of rare books he wanted to smuggle back when he went home. Castiel no doubt would have disapproved of bringing _anything_ back, but he hadn't returned to chastise _anyone_. The Devil appeared from the rows of books, adding one more to the short stack.

Sammy eyed them with secret approval, but refrained from commenting. They had the look of ancient mythology and history. Lucifer selected one on demonology that _had_ to be specific to 'here' instead of 'there', leaving a page marked with a scrap of paper on the shared table. Sam found himself curious about a Devil who actually reads. That and the library he claimed to have. He probably didn't even need the bookmark scrap to keep his place, but he did it anyway; another human mannerism that included consuming donuts and helpfully leaving notes for police detectives.

Over the time they'd been stuck with him, his personality swung from playboy to teenager and now, 'scholar.'

At one point in the morning, while pouring over something that claimed to be a spell book, Lucifer asked Sam a question in Latin, and Sam shot an answer back without thinking about it, also in Latin. Lucifer didn't seem to realize either of them had done it until after the fact, at which point he flashed Sam the first genuine smile he'd seen from him. Dark eyes lit up without any innuendo dancing in them.

Lucifer followed up with a more complicated query, also in Latin. Sam had to stop and think about it since the majority of his vocabulary was for incantations or other spell identification, but he threaded together an answer with only one or two English words mixed in.

Dean looked up at them, cocking an eyebrow, understanding none of the Latin.

The Devil grinned over the pile of books scattered on the table. He bit his tongue in a very human gesture, tilting his head fractionally, bird-like. In Hebrew, he asked, "(Do you speak or read any other languages?")

Sam looked at the ceiling for a second, processing it. In English, he responded, "Sorry, I understood that but can't respond in it. I speak some Spanish. Stanford was the only place I could really study another language, but my classes focused on law." In spite of himself, he asked, "Is there anything you _don't_ speak?"

"I tend to stick to English, at least while in L.A.. Once in a while I'll converse with Ella in Klingon. It's not a complete language, but it's real enough."

Sam did a double take, his long bangs flying. "You picked up _Klingon_?"

"Someone bothered to invent it as a functional language, so I skimmed a Klingon/English dictionary, and Ella is on my short list of favorite humans."

"Just to talk to Ella? Huh."

"She was delighted, by the way. She loves being able to speak to me secretly in public. Luckily she hasn't asked me if I've actually watched _Star Trek_. I'm quite sure I'd fail her there, at least with completeness."

Sam couldn't help but be amused by the King of the Underworld catching up serial television. "You haven't? I didn't have a lot of time to watch tv as a kid, but I've at least seen the Original Series and some other episodes of _Trek_ that ran in syndication on cable."

"No WiFi in Hell. I plan to rectify that if I ever end up back there. Granted, I'm not entirely sure how that would work. When I take a holiday topside, it isn't usually for the telly entertainment."

Sam sensed he had a small window where he wasn't going to be propositioned randomly, so he exploited it. " _Why_ are you British? Seriously?"

Lucifer shrugged. "It's a lot more fun than American, for one thing. My partners tend to love dirty talk with an accent. Did you know it's possible to _talk_ someone into a sexual peak? That makes a fun night, if rare."

So much for having a conversation that didn't involve sex.

Dean went full side-eye. Thank gods he didn't volunteer to demonstrate. Yet. "And I thought I got a lot of tail." He both wanted and didn't want to know if the partner in question was male or female. He shuddered. The mere thought of a male partner was just not his wheelhouse. Weren't they supposed to be working?

Lucifer went on, tapping his temple. "The largest sex organ is actually the brain. I can't stress enough how much you miss by sticking to just one gender." He smiled to himself about some other lascivious memory. Or maybe even the same one. Dean didn't ask.

The older brother wiped his face. "You think Chloe would ever put up with it?" He flipped a page randomly, not even sure why he bothered to ask. "Does she even know who you are?"

He sat back. "I tell her all the time, but she doesn't believe me. I even have a little credentialed badge somewhere that says 'Lucifer Morningstar, Civilian Consultant.' Not that I wear it. Oh. Maze, was it by chance in the suit I came here in?"

She looked up from where she stood guard at the end of a shelf. "It's in the bag in the car."

The boys blinked. Dean continued, exasperated, "You _tell_ the people you work with that you're Lucifer? The Devil?"

He spread out his arms, gesturing to himself. "Natch. I am, after all. Fake names are so _tedious._ "

Dean's eyebrows reached for his hairline. "And they-what? Some of them believe you?"

"Not a one." He shrugged again as if it didn't bother him. "A year and a half and they still either brush me off as slightly insane or a 'method actor.' You'd think if I were trying for a part I would have either gotten it by now or dropped it."

Sam had his face in his hands. He rubbed his eyes and picked up a sheet of scratched on paper he'd just finished with. "Cas isn't back. I don't suppose Enochian is spoken or written the same way where you come from?"

Lucifer accepted the sheet. "Luckily that was my first language. Humans don't tend to write it out correctly, however. I'm not familiar with your summoning spells, so the intended word use might be different. Your Latin incantations don't seem to make a real sentence, even if I'm assuming they actually work. How does your exorcism spell go?"

Sam started to recite it, then stopped and glanced at Maze.

She looked back placidly. "If I start to get sucked out of my body, I'll let you know."

"It's just that, the summoning spell worked on you, even if it shouldn't have. The exorcism incantation might affect either of you, in some way we don't expect."

Lucifer had a thought. "Unless whatever drew her over merely used the summoning as a celestial excuse. It shouldn't have worked, so maybe it _didn't_."

Sam and Dean glanced at each other. Dean frowned. "But, it did? She's here?"

Sam considered the suggestion. "But maybe, it didn't just happen-someone with power, say an angel or...something - saw a summoning spell being cast, and just threw Maze in the circle instead of one of our demons? For some reason?"

The Devil scoured the sheet. "Can you summon specific demons? Or does the standard spell just call the nearest one?"

"You _can_ , but those tend to use different spells, even different kinds that use both spell components and verbal language." He hesitated, looking anywhere but at Dean. "There is a type called generically 'crossroads demons.' They're usually lesser demons who are called, or sometimes they'll just show up without any spell...who like to make deals in exchange for souls."

Lucifer winced in distaste. "But any demon can do so?" He looked up sharply from his paper. _The demon blood and hell-taint._ Angrily, he spit out, "Are either of you held to such a deal?"

"No, not...anymore."

"They can be broken?"

"No. They can't, as it turns out. We tried. Killing the crossroads demon doesn't end the contract if someone above them holds it. The deal can be transferred to another demon, but they don't exactly like working together."

Lucifer recalled an earlier comment, looking at Dean seriously now instead of his original prime suspect. "You've been to Hell."

Maze's attention drew to the group again.

Dean grumbled. "Wouldn't you have known that?"

"Not _my_ hell." Dark eyes regarded Dean's irritable mossy green. "How did you get out of your hell-loop?" The question was pure professional curiosity.

He stared coldly, but rolled his left arm out of his long-sleeved flannel shirt, revealing a vibrantly distinct raised handprint high on his upper arm in angry red. "Cas."

Lucifer wore an annoyed look. Perhaps at angels breaking into Hell without permission. He didn't reach for the mark, as Dean expected. "Castiel went to Hell for you? And returned you to your original body? May I ask why?"

"On orders, apparently. Didn't even know it was him at the time. Cas had no other contact with us until the seals began to be broken and then he showed up. Dramatically."

Sam backtracked. "Hell-loop?"

"Your guilty memories forcing you to eternally repeat whatever action sent you to hell? What on earth would prompt you to make such a foolish deal? What's worth your immortal soul, since you obviously knew the real cost?" His voice rose, the Devil himself berating Dean for making a deal with demons.

They looked back with twin expressions of bewilderment.

"Well?"

Roughly, Dean responded, "Remind me to die in your universe next time."

"Is that not how it works here?"

"No. _That's not 'how it works here_.'" Dean clenched his jaw against the memory, cutting himself off. "I'm _done_ talking about this. Let me know when you get somewhere." With that, Dean stood, brushing past Maze and exiting the store. The sound of a car starting didn't follow him.

Sam eyed Lucifer's flabbergasted expression. He had to ask, "Seriously? No torture?"

"Well, of course, yes. There's actual torture also. Part of the job. Maze is my highest-ranking demon for a reason. Some souls require...assistance. You yourself must have encountered some such."

Mazikeen threw an evil grin at Sam, who didn't return it. He felt cold.

The Devil went on. "You can't deny _some_ humans should be punished in hell. I haven't seen anything from either of you to indicate your brother deserved it."

Sam didn't look at Lucifer. "...Who needs extra torture?"

"Hitler is an easy example. Demons are lined up outside that door, pretty much round the clock. Most souls punish themselves quite handily, without any extra help."

Quietly, through clenched teeth, "You're saying Dean would not have been _tortured_ in your home?"

Lucifer remained oblivious. "Had he died of natural causes I highly doubt he would end up in Hell at all."

"But if he had?"

"I can't honestly answer that. If he went to my Hell with no 'contract,' as there would be none, then it would depend entirely on what he did to come to me. Usually, torture is reserved for true evil, but some demons get overzealous and have to be reined in. Eternity is a very long time."

"What about your mother, though?"

"Never looked in on her, to be honest. She was left alone, save for Maze."

His face paled. "You let your _mother_ be tortured?"

"She was the one who was responsible for sending _me_ to Hell in the first place. Do you know how long I was there, alone? Cast away from everyone I ever knew or loved? Bloody ash coating every surface without end? I didn't see the sun for over a thousand human years. The sun _I_ created."

Lucifer grew frustrated. "In any case, Dad put her there, not me. Probably let her out again too."

Sam felt his soul torn by equal parts sympathy and horror. The angel - the only fallen angel - cut off his own wings so he couldn't go back. Every other thing they'd seen in their lives and this was still too much to sort.

 _Their mother burning on the ceiling._

"The caged Lucifer…"

"Is a true monster. His demons trick humans into selling their eternal souls, for kicks. If any demon of mine acted like his, they'd be destroyed, personally. With malice."


	14. Brothers and Cousins

Maze went out to find lunch.

Sam flipped over a few rubber-backed floor mats, inspecting them for cracks. He found the largest one in the shop without major cracks in the backing and dragged it back to their area. Digging around in their bag, he grabbed some thick red paint in a tube and a brush and hunched over the impromptu canvas.

Lucifer peered over the table, hand in chin, slightly interested. "What are you doing?"

"Devil's Trap, in case another demon in a vessel shows up and we decide we want it to stick around."

"That works? Some acrylic paint lines and a flat surface?"

Sam glanced up, deciding Lucifer wasn't currently mocking him. "It doesn't matter what a cross is made of, it's still a symbol. Draw the symbols right, and you have a working spell." He quickly loaded his brush with crimson and painted a circle and pentagram, adding several curvy sigils between lines. Even his long reach didn't quite let him make a circle in one pass, so he stood and moved a few times. "All they have to do is step within the circle and they can't move out of it again. I prefer putting them on the ceiling, but that's not feasible here."

Lucifer was mildly impressed he could paint a near-perfect circle free-hand. "Does it work on Cas?"

"No, it's demon-specific. I don't know what would hold an angel...Or you, to be honest. Cas might know those things, but I doubt he's going to tell us."

"Hmph. So he has some intelligence then." Lucifer got up and came over to examine the thing. As Sam connected the final paint lines, power infused the pattern then hid from him, sinking into the design. The energy pattern wasn't visible to the naked human eye, but Sam nodded confidently when he finished it, like he knew it was done correctly.

"That's different."

Sam stood up, realizing Lucifer positioned himself uncomfortably close. "Want to try it? Just out of curiosity? I'll break the lines if it works."

He raised an eyebrow. "You swear on your soul?"

Sam drew back. "Uh?"

"You think I'd settle for anything less if I do get trapped?"

"That's a hefty request."

"It's a hefty _deal_. Not request. And I'm _eternal._ "

"...On second thought, maybe we should just wait and try it another time." Once the paint had dried, Sam gently flipped the rug back over, hiding the pattern under it. He packed up and returned to the table.

Lucifer gave it distance all the same.

* * *

Maze lingered at the bookstore entrance, a bag of sandwiches in hand. She left her leather jacket in the car, wearing a low-cut silky black top that glittered in the sun with small sequin patterns. She was doing her own research trying to find the cultists, using her new phone and the stolen one.

Dean ignored her until his third pass around the block. "What are you doing?"

"Enjoying the view."

Dean blinked several times, trying to squint through the reflections off her clothes. He gave up and stood in doorway opposite her.

"This sun is going to murder me. I don't know how you live here."

"I like the heat." Maze raised her eyebrows, raking her eyes down him. "You could lose the flannel, that might help. Not that it doesn't make you look like a sexy rugged lumberjack."

He defensively pulled his worn long-sleeved button-up shirt straighter. "At least one of you is straight."

Maze laughed.

"Okay then."

"I like girls too. I have a type - maybe a few types. You're one of them."

"What is this, divide and conquer? You come after me and your boss goes for Sammy as soon as you show up?"

Maze leaned back in the doorway with a sigh. "It's not like we can take you with us when we go home. I'm not looking for a _sweetheart_. You happen to look like a fun lay. I figured I'd have _less_ of a shot with you if I suddenly turned and went after your brother instead. You really don't seem like the kind of guy looking for a long term partner- you _or_ him."

Dean allowed a ghost of a smirk. "So you're flat out admitting I'm a piece of meat to you?"

Maze deliberately licked her lips. "More like a five-star dinner. Do you know how sexy you are?"

"You two don't give up, do you?"

She stepped down from the door awning, a sway in her hips. "That depends, is it working?"

"From _him_? Not so much."

"You know, you and I could be good friends while I'm here."

"I don't make friends. It usually goes badly for them."

" _Casual_ acquaintances then? We could go get a drink, show each other our battle scars?"

Dean scratched the back of his head, jerking his eyes away from her cleavage. "I don't do demons."

She edged a little closer. "I'm very resistant to pain. I'm always up for a little whips-and-chains session if you decide you want to vent some...frustration."

He blinked. _That idea certainly had some appeal. Then again, she probably liked that kind of thing._ Dean hadn't figured out how to respond before she vanished back into the store.

* * *

They found themselves sitting next to each other, much to Sam's surprise. Once they really started digging into the Enochian words and proper spellings and translations, it became easy for Sam to forget who his study buddy was. When Lucifer got absorbed in a task, he forgot to 'be Lucifer', making real workflow possible.

Not that Dean wasn't Sam's preferred partner in crime, but he could hardly have conversations in Latin with him.

After the first hour by themselves, Sam even started to ignore the affectionate sounding pet names Lucifer enjoyed throwing in his general direction, trying to get a rise out of him.

Notes flew back and forth, a few more books were located.

Maze re-appeared with lunch and Dean. Sam told her not to cross or stand on the rug. She gave him a dirty look, but nodded, and went back to whatever she was doing before. Dean muttered something about hitting a bar later and went off to find a water fountain.

Sam came back to himself, realizing he was alone with Lucifer. Not that Maze nearby had made it any better. Lucifer looked up, chewing on a pencil - good Lord, why? - and seemed to catch on Sam's thoughts. He grinned, leaning on one arm, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. "So, Sammy-"

Displaced air popped, Cas' voice floating behind them. "I found Amenadiel."

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "Has Dad never given a lesson on timing?"

Sam jumped violently. "A 'hello' would be nice."

Castiel gumbled. "Hello."

"First. A 'hello' would be nice, _first_. Or at least don't pop in behind us."

Lucifer turned, waving Cas over. "Where is he?"

"He's in Heaven. I'm having trouble convincing them to let him leave."

Lucifer growled, "And why is that?"

Cas hesitated. "...They aren't convinced _he's_ an angel."

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "I _saw_ him banished with your blood sigil. Why aren't they convinced?"

"Two reasons. One is that he's not in a vessel, so they don't really know what to make of him. The other problem is that he doesn't have wings."

Lucifer growled. "You can't be serious. Maybe they just don't manifest up there - you're all disembodied blobs of floating energy up there anyway. Who do we talk to get him back?"

"I am attempting to resolve the issue. Don't do anything. They don't need to know _you're_ the one looking for him. We might have a riot."

Sam frowned. "No. We might be able to - Cas, how many angels do you know here with vessels? What about Uriel? Can we talk to him directly?"

Lucifer froze. " _Uriel_?"

Sam turned to Lucifer. "You know him? Yours?"

He visibly hesitated. "I did, yes. There must Uriels in several universes."

Castiel clearly sensed something. "What happened to _Uriel_?"

Lucifer stalled, absently flipping through a notebook. "If it was that important, don't you think Dad would have told you? Come to think of it, I haven't met any other 'Castiels'."

Sam side-eyed the Devil, standing. "You know what happened to him, don't you?"

Lucifer stood as well. "That's neither here nor there."

Dean crossed his arms, drawing up next to his brother. The imposing bit probably worked on other mortals. The Devil, not so much. Dean pressed, "what happened to _your_ Uriel?"

"It wouldn't help matters if I told you. It has no bearing on our current problem."

"And yet, I suddenly want to know anyway." Dean glowered, suspicious.

Cas stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. "Lucifer, Uriel is your brother."

"Was. Yes. Let's not dwell on the past."

"Was he banished? Fallen? Killed?"

Long sigh. "Killed."

Sam rubbed his forehead. "How?"

Lucifer hedged, grumpily jotting down lines. "With Azrael's Blade. She is the Angel of Death."

"So she was killed by Azrael?" Sam's lips puckered, as if he didn't care for the name.

"No, you misunderstand. With her sword. It's second only to Michaels'."

Sam shot a look at Cas "Does that make any sense at all?"

"We don't have an 'Azrael', but written human lore indicates there to be such an 'Angel of Death', though there is none who hold that title. Michael, of course, you are aware of."

He redirected at Lucifer. "What's so special about her blade?"

"It causes pure destruction. One term is 'vorpal'. I haven't actually seen my sister in eons. Uriel stole it from her."

Sam flinched. Dean didn't.

Cas came close to having real disapproval in his voice. "Where is it now?"

Lucifer shrugged casually. "It's in my study, I think."

They looked at him. Lucifer glared. "It's perfectly safe with me. Azrael can come get it anytime she wants."

The angel stepped up, "Was it safe with Uriel?"

Maze reappeared, tense.

Lucifer stood, defensive. "It would have been, if he hadn't poked his bloody nose in where it didn't belong. He shouldn't have stolen the bloody blade in the first place."

Dean rubbed his face. "So, the blade we actually should be worrying about is floating around in your 'study' by itself, while you're _here_ , Amenadiel is trapped upstairs and Uriel is dead?"

"It's fine. No knows else knows about it. Except Mum, I suppose. And Amenadiel."

Dean snapped. "Of all the irresponsible-!"

"I certainly wouldn't bring it with me _here_ , now would I? I can't just walk around with the bloody thing out and about. Who knows what might happen?"

Cas pushed. "Lucifer. Do you know who is responsible for Uriel's death?"

Lucifer didn't answer, glaring.

"Why did you kill Uriel?"

* * *

Trixie poked at her cereal.

"Monkey, you ready for school yet?"

"I don't want cereal."

Chloe patted her daughters head. "Do you feel sick, honey?"

"My tummy hurts some."

"Do you want something to drink?"

"Nooooo."

"You miss Maze, don't you? We'll see them again soon."

"Is she _really_ coming back?"

"I don't know, sweetie, but I'm sure she's fine. She and Lucifer are probably just busy with something."

Chloe, bustling around, didn't notice her daughters posture change. She straightened, blinking at her breakfast and looking around slowly. "How long has-" she tripped a little "- _Lucifer_ been gone?"

Chloe picked up her keys. "Not long honey, just after Maze, remember?"

Trixie bit her lip, nodding. She abruptly located and grabbed her backpack, digging through it. "Can I use your phone today?"

Chloe stopped, looking down at her, squinting. "We say 'please', and you can use the tablet tonight after dinner and homework, but not at school."

Trixie schooled her face from a very adult expression that put her mom on edge, pasting on a rigid smile. "Okay." She poked around in her bag again. She frowned. "May I _please_ have some money for school snacks?"

Chloe sighed. "You bring me back change, okay? I only have a twenty."

"Sure. Mom."


	15. That's not good

The day had not started well. Trixie acted weird the whole drive to school. She wanted to play a game called, 'Pretend I know nothing about Lucifer.' The phrasing came out weird enough. She asked about things like how long had they known each other and where did they meet? But none of it was in a playful manner.

Trixie insisted she felt fine.

As usual, traffic sucked, so they had time to 'play'. A few times, she simply looked out the window silently. She didn't even look up when Chloe asked if she wanted chocolate cake after dinner later tonight. Trixie just asked if she saw Lucifer at work every day or just out on crime scenes.

"Well...for the last few months, a little bit of both. He was a big help on the last case we worked. He wasn't quite right with his suspicions about our suspect - he's usually off-track at first - almost always, come to think of it. But it _did_ lead us to the right person, in the long run. We made the arrest and the victim's sister sent us - well, just him, actually - flowers. She seemed to like him a lot, but most people do."

Trixie mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'what the hell?'

Chloe had to brake suddenly right then, derailing her intention to investigate.

Trixie huffed. _Huffed._ "Most? Why-" she cut herself off. If Chloe had looked in her mirror just then, she would have seen an exasperated daughter, glaring at nothing in particular.

The ride ended uneventfully, Trixie dragging her bag out of the car and following the other kids.

The day didn't really get any better though.

Chloe tapped her foot impatiently under her desk at work. A couple of hours after clocking in, she discovered her wallet missing. She forgot to throw a protein bar in her purse this morning and someone at work finished off _her_ salted caramel coffee creamer and put the empty container back in the fridge.

She worked with heathens.

Dan had been complaining about coworkers stealing his pudding for a year.

Speaking of. Her ex finally wandered by. She had her own work to do and had put off tracking him down. Besides, she knew she was going to be pissy and he probably didn't derserve it. Dan took a second look at her and immediately thought of better places to be. She caught him before he got far. "Dan."

He appeared to be debating inventing an excuse to flee. That was not a promising tone of voice, even under normal circumstances.

He stopped, turning slowly. "What's up?"

She bit her lip. "When you had Trix last, did she do anything super pre-teenagery?"

Dan took a tiny step back. "Other than eat all the chocolate ice cream in my freezer? No…? What happened?"

"She was acting a little weird this morning. I went into my purse for snack machine change - I know I had quarters in the bottom - and my wallet is gone."

"O...Kay?"

"I think Trixie picked up my wallet, maybe by accident?" She glared at her purse, annoyed.

Dan frowned. "That isn't like her. She asks me for money sometimes but she never goes through my stuff without asking. Are you sure you didn't forget it? Do you need a few singles?" He pulled out his wallet.

She thought about it. "Well, I might have left it at home. She asked for cash before school, but it's not like me to not put something back. And yeah, thanks." Without Lucifer here either, fending for herself for the day was going to suck.

"C'mon, this is Trixie. She'll make you want to _give_ her the money, she won't just _take_ it. Unless she picked up bad habits from Lucifer. He takes my pudding all the time. Even when I label it. Maybe especially when I label it."

"Don't be silly. He only steals food. I'm not even sure your pudding qualifies as 'food'."

"Right…" Dan forced himself to ask - but couldn't resist a pun, "speaking of the Devil, any updates?"

She shook her head. "Nothing new. Charlotte came by late last night in the middle of a meltdown because she hasn't heard from Lucifer either. Or Amenadiel. She didn't seem to care about Maze."

Dan leaned casually against the wall by her desk. "She did? Drop by that is?"

Chloe put her hands up, waving. "She flew in and flew back out again. I think I had some bad wine last night because she didn't make any sense at all, other than not reaching them. She sounded really worried about them."

Dan crossed his arms. "I hate to ask this, but is it time to put out an APB on a missing Devil & Co.?"

"If It were just any one of them, I'd say no. But all three? It might be time to go looking for them." As she said it, someone walked over her grave and she shuddered. "Not that I could even guess how to go look for them. Maybe traffic camera footage around Lux."

The Lieutenant waved Chloe over "Hey, Decker, where's your partner? We've got a body."

Chloe turned to her boss. "Lucifer isn't in touch right now. Do we need him?"

"Grab Espinoza then. We've got a woman whose throat had been slit this morning, two women, actually, who seem to be victims of opportunity. The first call came in about an hour ago. The second body, the first victim, was found a little after that."

She looked at Dan. "Mugging?"

"Nope. Just our run of the mill weirdness. Your partner might actually be of some help here. Lopez is gonna have a field day."

The average human body holds five liters of blood but it looks like a lot more when it's spread out over a few flat surfaces. The blood splatters on the brick walls had dried to darker brown on dirty bricks. The larger sticky puddle in the middle of the alley had congealed, drying out.

Doris, the first victim, had been dragged into the alley a few blocks down. Pointed furrows that lay gouged into the ground where her heels struck gravel and dirt, and she might have fought against her attacker. Short and long dragging marks in the debris told a story that she didn't go down easy. As a victim, Doris was not ideal - larger and alert enough that a pepper spray keychain lay nearby, though unused.

Her throat had been slit from ear to ear, and she bled out quickly. A lone murder didn't necessarily need to involve a full-on investigation involving all hands on deck. There was a homicide, sure, and would be investigated, but even the violence of the attack wasn't far out of the ordinary for another murder in a city of daily suspicious deaths.

At the first scene, the blood had been contained, seeping into a gutter, the body tilted in a way to be less visible from the street, behind a dumpster. A larger, separate puddle of blood had pooled on the ground, as if poured deliberately. Doris might have gone undiscovered a little longer, had the second body not been found first.

The second victim made the murders a priority, sending up red flags the size of circus tents.

Ella had walked Chloe and Dan through the first - chronological - crime scene, noting her observations about the possible height and build of the suspect, but it was tricky. The steps were small, the build of the attacker made it likely that they could not have carried or dragged Doris on their own, and Doris didn't drag or carry herself in either. Footprints detoured around the blood and no weapons of any kind were found at the scene.

A block away, the second body lay in the same position as the first, her throat cut in the same manner, likely with the same weapon or tool. Her body rested in the back corner, out of direct line of sight of the sidewalk.

Which was where the similarities ended. Blood had been _thrown_ all up and down the alleyway, centered on or next to the body. It painted both sides of the alley in streaks and splashes, some of it raining back down on the victim herself. Then the body was stabbed and slashed after or around death several times, viciously.

An empty cup of what appeared to be solid brass had been overturned. The only term Chloe's brain came up with for it was 'chalice.' Some engravings or decorative etchings chased around the upper outer facing but they had no significance to Ella.

Most murders Chloe encountered over the course of her career tended to be opportunistic or done in the heat of the moment. Even premeditated murders often involved poisoning to delay or hide their tracks, with almost always a better attempt at hiding the body than propped up against a wall.

Ella shook herself. "So, the footprints are clear here, but they seem to point at a short person."

Chloe took a careful breath, eyeing the scene. "Why short?"

Ella raised her hands over her head, 'throwing' invisible liquid. "The arcs of the blood aren't that high. It had to have been thrown out of that - " She pointed at the cup on the ground. "And the upper edge of the blood that stuck isn't much higher than me. Whoever made this mess, my guess? they were _pissed_."

Dan's face looked a little green. "And they weren't the first time?"

"The first murder was performed by someone who has done this before, or maybe killed wildlife this way. There's no false starts with a knife, and the cut happened higher than what they show in TV, hitting softer flesh, not the trachea. The victim could still breathe when she died. The attacker pulled her off the street, killed her quietly and quickly, probably used that same cup to collect and dump the blood - who knows why. Then they did it again here a few blocks away but something happened." She shook her head. "I don't think they were caught in the act or there'd be _another_ body, I think. So they weren't interrupted, they just...exploded."

Dan scratched his neck. "This...you're saying was ritualistic? Putting blood in...that? Do we even know of any serial killers, past or present, who do that kind of thing?"

Chloe found herself touching her own throat and dropped her hand.

Ella, in purple nitrile gloves, picked up the heavy cup and placed it in an evidence bag. She had finished taking photos of the scene, and there wasn't much else to actually collect, outside of blood samples. The murder weapon had left with the murderer as well. "Nothing like the blood throwing, much less purposefully collecting in a vessel."

Chloe twitched. "Did they _drink_ the blood? Is that why it was in a cup?"

Dan blinked. "You can't be seriously asking that?"

Ella rotated the cup in the bag, holding the edge to the light. She had considered it herself. "I don't see any lip marks. Could be fingerprints though. I'm not saying it's not super creepy, but I don't think this was vampiric? Vampire wannabe?"

"Do you think Dan's right? Was this some kind of ritual?"

Ella blew out her breath. "I think Lucifer would be handy right now. He knows more about this kind of stuff than I could guess at. He at least might be able to make a guess at what religion or religious practice might do this kind of thing." She looked up, uneasy, mentally grabbing at straws. "Maybe the blood patterns mean something?"

Chloe's eyes followed the designs in blood. "Do you see a pattern? Which...splatters went up first?"

Ella sounded a little thready. "Not sure. But there's got to be something, right?" She played with her cross necklace under her shirt, trying to make sense of the rage and destruction. "I mean, if this happened in a cop drama, I'd call it mindless rage. But to my eye, it's undirected at anything."

"Ever since the run in with that Satanic cult, you kept an eye out for stuff like that, right? Is this a...Satan worshipper thing?" A part of Chloe's brain that wasn't stunned by the gory display was dying to find out what he'd make of this, if anything. He'd likely fly into a rage at the suggestion the Devil had anything at all to do with this.

She smiled to herself a tiny, tiny bit, missing him. _Lucifer? Where ya at, crime buddy?_

Ella gestured. "My team looked for occult symbols, but there's nothing like that. We'll try again with a black light, but it's going to require a lot of work to find anything under the blood. This entire alley will have to be pressure washed with bleach once we've scoured it clean of evidence. The gossip rag busy bodies already came by, got their own photos and took off again.

Chloe nodded. _Assholes._ "And the bloody footprints out of the alley?"

"They fade to nothing pretty quick. We aren't sure where they're headed after twenty feet or so. Looks like sneaker prints."

Chloe nodded. "Do we know where the _Indiana Jones_ thing came from?"

She shrugged. "Only one of two options: They either had it on them or they stole it. I don't know why they left it behind. It might do to check the local Craigslist to see if anyone went looking online for something this specific, but I can't imagine they'd leave it behind after that much...investment into whatever this is supposed to be. On the other hand, this isn't exactly a dollar store discount rack item."

Dan stood tense. "We've all seen a lot of murders. Even weird ones. But this is just creepy. Reminds me of that guy who was strung up in the warehouse."

"Oh, yeah I read about that. It's kind of like that, because this body wasn't robbed, that I can tell. She still has her purse, phone, cards and cash. Plus there's the chaos of the blood. No one happy did this. Unless we're dealing with someone insane, but I don't think so."

"Because they tried to hide the bodies?"

"Yeah. That and there aren't more. We should pay close attention to any new missing people reports. For all we know, there's yet another body nearby that was hidden better than these that we haven't found yet."

Chloe shivered. They weren't near the club, at least. Lux was the last place anything could be traced to Lucifer's phone.

Dan shuddered. "We should check with the precinct and see if anyone around here got robbed last night. Maybe a pawn shop? Antique store?"

"Maybe a church?"

Lucifer glared.

"I had to. He was going to murder the Detective. And Mum."

Sam pinched his nose. "Your mother who was in Hell? And would presumably go back there?"

Dean growled with decreasing patience. "What detective?"

Lucifer threw his hands up like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Do none of you pay attention? Chloe!"

"Jesus, then say 'Chloe'! Do you even like this woman?"

The Devil's eyes rimmed red for a fraction of a second. "I would give my life to protect hers!"

Sam and Dean both leaned back, stunned into silence.

It was Cas' turn to look lost. "Why would Uriel kill a human?"

Dean recovered first, throwing a side-eye at Cas. "Seriously? When have angels ever given a crap about a human life? If you remember, Bobby and I tried to kill you when you showed up."

Ever matter-of-fact, Cas replied flatly, "And you failed."

Maze squinted. "Oh this, I gotta hear."

Dean waved her off. "Maybe later."

The look on Maze face indicated she would hold him to that.

Lucifer looked from one brother to another. "Your angels don't seem very endeared to humans. Even Uriel bent the rules to the breaking point to do what he did."

"Cas _barely_ cares that half of the population of Earth is in mortal danger from impending apocalypse, and he's apparently one of the few that care even that much."

Sam finally spoke. "Ruby-"

Dean rounded on Sam, stabbing a finger at him. "Do NOT get me started on Ruby."

Lucifer raised an eyebrow.

"Again, later. Cas may be put out over it, but here angels are all assholes. _Our_ Uriel probably isn't or wasn't any better than yours, but he has a vessel, and talks to Cas."

Castiel frowned. "You admit to murdering Uriel?"

"That wasn't my intention. I only wanted to reason with him. I sent Amenadiel to scare him off first, but he wouldn't leave well enough alone. He threatened to kill the-Chloe. I was forced to act."

"Threatening isn't-"

Lucifer groaned. "He sets up future consequences. She might as well have been there under the blade herself."

"But _why?"_

He didn't answer right away, glaring daggers. "I made a deal with Dad. Her life in exchange that I return whatever escaped Hell, back."

"So?"

And then it turned out to be Mum."

Both Sam and Dean appeared flummoxed. Sam rubbed his face. "So, Chloe was...dying?

"In mortal danger."

"Okay, in mortal danger. And to get her out of that, you agreed to send an escapee back to Hell? How mortal was this danger?"

"I couldn't protect her myself, you see, I'd been shot." He gestured to his solar plexus, presumably where he had been wounded.

Sam had seen people shot there before. It wasn't something one got back up from. He winced in empathy, his brain scrolling through the times he himself had been shot. "You are one weird Satan. Cas, are you sure we can't just keep him?"

Cas' expression turned to horror.

"I'm kidding. Mostly. So, your mother?"

"Escaped Hell, yes."

"And you haven't found her to put her back yet?"

"Oh, no, she's living with me, temporarily. I decided she should spend the rest of her days on earth. It's quite a torment for her."

"Earth. Is...worse than Hell? Dean, we're moving."

"For _her._ She hates humans. It's all about tailoring the punishment to fit the crime, you know. Hardly anyone _actually_ deserves skin flaying."

Dean glared.

Sam resisted the urge to sit down and bang his head on the table. Barely. "But you made a deal with God. So Uriel came to collect."

"He only used that as an excuse to meddle with my life. Dad didn't send him. He stole Azrael's blade, clearly because she had no intention of coming on her own."

Cas vanished again.

Lucifer looked at the air where he had been. "Really?"

Sam buried his face in his hands, warding off a headache. "Okay, fine, you're short a Uriel. Is there anything we have to worry about that actually matters right this second?"

The four of them looked at each other.

Lucifer tilted his head. "Honestly I thought you'd be a lot more put out about it."

Dean grumped. "You may not have noticed, but we're fighting a war here, mostly against demons, but we have a few angels who are all for the end of the world happening, too. Our goal is to stop that and sort out the bodies later."

Maze regarded Dean. "Have you ever killed an angel?"

"Not yet. But I'm all ears if you have any tips."

Lucifer grunted. "I'd prefer not to upset the celestial balance here, but that's already endangered with the presence of the daggers."

Dean cleared his throat. "Well, our angel whisperer is gone, now what?"

Maze held out her stolen phone. "We should go find the demon-nappers."

Lucifer brightened. "Indeed? Do you know where they are?"

"I've been texting Douche. Turns out he's useful here, sometimes. He got me a series of locations this phone made calls from."

Sam felt himself back on solid footing. "Even if we're right and the summoning didn't work directly, they still might have been a trigger point for it. Maybe we'll get really lucky and the locations will be on a leyline or another pattern - something we can anticipate. I don't think they're done with whatever they're trying to do."

With a pop of air, Cas returned. "A demon crossed back."

Dean didn't even blink. "Cas?"

Cas looked at Maze. "When she came over, a demon went back, maybe more than one, since Lucifer is here too."

Lucifer attempted to take it in stride. "Can we please have Amenadiel back then so I can go deal with it?"

Dean and Sam looked at each other. Neither of them liked it. "We better go with you."

"Not on your lives."


	16. Angelus Ex-Machina

Neither the boys nor Castiel were invited, though Cas waited 'outside.'

Not everyone knew the Garden still stood, nor where it was. Nor when. Uriel appeared, scooped them up and whisked them off. He imagined the brothers back in the library, suddenly alone again, without so much as a 'back soon!'.

Angels are dicks.

This place was the closest to Heaven he would ever be again. And he was here only under a wary truce.

His cousins would not grant him access and even if they would… the thought of entering the place to his greatest triumph and his biggest loss... no, he would not go, not even to someone else's Golden Gates. Had they a mind to, they could probably hold him there indefinitely. Here, he could be easily outnumbered and overpowered, but in this place, the truce was absolute. One could only enter or leave of their own free will. Time did not pass here but held as still as the lake on Mars. Otherwise, it was static, literally timeless.

Which carried much more weight for an immortal.

The sword knew him. Of course it did, as he recognized other angels, this sword knew him too. It was a mirror to the sword in his study, though this one had never left the Tree.

Standing guard, animated in air, though no mortal would ever see it now. No mortal had _ever_ seen this one, placed after Eve and Adam had been expelled from the Garden. Wreathed in boiling blue and red fire, the sword was the only thing that moved here, orienting itself to all that entered. It could have been beautiful, but it was merely not for the ethereal, dancing flames wreathing around it, it could have been the longsword of a low knight, unadorned but shining steel that it was made of otherwise.

The Tree of Life had been uprooted - both figuratively and literally - from Earth many millennia ago. Some still called it 'The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,' but that had always been such a mouthful that people rarely used it nowadays. Humans questioned whether there were two trees or one. It had been removed from earth after Babel, so the ongoing discussion among some scholars really was a moot point, since there wasn't even a single branch left there that spoke even of the existence of _one_ , never mind two. The smooth bark grew flawlessly, beautiful and perfect, Every leaf the same size, Every fruit the same size and shape. Even the flames on the sword burned on both halves of the blade in perfect symmetry.

Lucifer hated it. It was too perfect. Ugly even in its perfection.

Not to mention creepy.

The sword flashed in the celestial light of not-here, but it would just as surely kill anyone who dared touch the tree. In theory, it could multiply itself if presented multiple trespassers, though it had never been tested. In all this time, Dad never rescinded His command. The fruit never fell, never harvested, never again consumed.

Lucifer looked up and up. It grew tall and proud, it's crown not in clear sight from the smooth marble ground where the pocket of space had been groomed to be this. The tree of Life was enormous now, taking up the entire skyline of this enclosed pocket of reality. On earth, such a tree would break under its own weight. Roots plunged into the shining marble, seamless. It mirrored in an absolutely perfect reflection of the perfect tree, teasing the mind with green leaves seen on the floor but none present at ground level. The sword did not appear in the reflection.

This space was purgatory adjacent. Designed for these sorts of occasions, out of a need for a place of conference, though Lucifer had never been himself. The roof, if there was one, was lost in mist with small red fruits dotting the sky in clusters. He could pick out the very branch he used to lounge on, now higher in the air because _someone_ had decided it wasn't big enough before. The sword flared again, adjusting it's tilt ever so slightly toward Lucifer.

He glared at it. "Down, girl. I'm not here for the damn fruit."

He remained in his earthly attire, slacks, nice shoes and a purple shirt.

"That's an interesting way to put it."

Uriel, waiting closer to the tree, assumed the form of his current vessel, a broad-shouldered black man wearing holy raiment. In contrast to his brothers usual flat grey wool, Uriel wore a many-layered flowing black silk robe trimmed in flashing gold. He adopted a pair of shadow wings that floated behind him, emphasizing Lucifer's lack thereof. These angels thought more highly of themselves than his own brothers, who tended to don less ostentatious wear. Amenadiel stood with him, silent for the moment, choosing to appear in the street clothes he'd been banished in. He did not manifest wings either. For the first time in longer than he cared to remember, he felt something like kinship with on of his family.

He still would have known Uriel anywhere, as he knew Castiel. This Uriel had a different gift than the one he knew.

He wasn't sure what gift that was yet, but for the moment, Lucifer went with 'angel of brooding.' The aura resonated with him, much like with his brothers, Unable to tune it out though he was so different now. He found himself tempted to drop his own glamour, just to see how Uriel would respond. The smile creeping up flattened with the memory of his brother dying by his hand.

Lucifer rolled his shoulders, missing and _hating_ that he missed his wings, if only for functionality. They would be resplendent here, showing down Uriel's shadows.

His scars burned. "You're correct, of course. The fruit wasn't the problem, was it, cousin? Dad only put it there, within temptation's reach, knowing what they would do, with or without me."

Uriel stood still as a stone. "They sealed their own downfall, beginning that day. Had you not tempted them, it would have no doubt been something else. The outcome of Father's experiment would still always have been the same - _will_ be the same, no matter how much they try to be worthy."

"Though they multiplied and the children are blameless?"

"It matters not. We are eternal. We will have the earth, one way or another. The tree will be replanted."

 _Interesting._ "You don't see the earth as a gift to Dad's favored creations?"

"Things change. They've misused their gift. It's up to us to right the course of the ship."

"And here I've been under the impression that a gift is to be used the way one sees fit. Silly me. Also, I can't really imagine that Dear Old Dad will be quite so eager to see them evicted. Or have I been out of touch for so long that even He changed His mind?"

Uriel remained still. Even his silk robes didn't so much as shift.

"Thought so."

Amenadiel ground his jaw. "Father has been out of direct communication for some time, as he has back home. Their interpretation of what will come to be is faulty." Lucifer made a note to ask just how talkative Amenadiel had been.

Uriel turned his head fractionally. "Luckily, you are to be sent back home where you can keep your opinions to yourself." Eyes back on Lucifer, "Your brother has been... Problematic."

Lucifer felt a crack of a smile toy at his lips. "I can well imagine. I always liked that about him. When not directed at me, anyway. Feel like explaining how your apocalypse is supposed to go then? According to you lot?"

"As you are aware, demons and angels require vessels. Sam and Dean are the ultimate expressions of specific breeding who will be able to contain... Lucifer and Michael, in that order. They will fight to the death, Michael will prevail as is preordained, and the righteous will inherit the earth, free of sin and corruption once again."

"Hmm. I thought it was the 'meek' who inherited? Sounds messy." He wiggled his finger at Uriel. "Ah, that's where the true vessel nonsense originated. Awfully small basket you've got your measly two eggs in. You're not worried about them getting cracked too soon?"

Uriel chewed his tongue. "We have ways around that."

"Right, Castiel 'rescuing' Dean from Hell, was it? Who worked that out? A single low angel couldn't possibly remove a soul from Hell without assistance." On that, Lucifer was confident. Unless their Hell was horrifically lax, it shouldn't be possible.

"Dean Winchester's deal with the crossroads demon was part of the plan. Castiel believes he did just that, single-handedly."

"Literally, considering the mark he left behind. Plan?"

Uriel didn't speak, so Amenadiel did. "Dean was meant to break in Hell because their father didn't. His was the first seal, a righteous man in Hell succumbing to the will of a demon."

That certainly explained some things. "Surely you can be content with being a part of heaven and leave the earth out of it?" He knew at this point he was merely spitting into the wind.

"While the Demon Crowley rules hell, unleashing evil as he sees fit? I think not." Uriel looked cross. "Evil will not be allowed to continue unchecked. The earth must be cleansed, or lost."

He nodded like he recognized the name. He didn't, but now he had one. Lucifer growled, annoyed. "I keep my demons from running around like rabid animals, why doesn't he?"

"He wants this as much as we do." Uriel looked to add something to his statement, then stopped.

Lucifer sensed a lie in there. _Interesting._ "Would you feel more comfortable if I wore robes?" He willed his clothing to change, adopting adorned flashy attire their pre-Fall Lucifer might have worn. Even in his own mind, he resisted speaking his former name. He must have guessed close, as Uriel took an actual step back. Lucifer now wore blindingly white spider-silk trimmed in blood red at the hems. He animated it for fun.

Uriel glared. Amenadiel remained stoic, but Lucifer could tell he was struggling not to at least be a little amused.

The angel of this world rose to the bait. "You should not take on a holy appearance here. You don't have a right to it."

"I may not get another chance to visit here. I haven't laid eyes on that tree in quite some time. I bet it misses me." He took a step closer, and the sword flashed in response.

"Don't antagonize it."

"Dear cousin, it won't hurt me if I don't touch it." He walked a few paces, watching the sword follow his movements. The spider-silk flowed as if the edges were in a river. He stopped. _It_ stopped.

"All the same."

He sighed. He looked for something _familiar_ in this cousin, but it wasn't there. The Uriel he knew could at least think for himself. This one was blinded with single-minded purpose.

"I'll request your confidence on this and the boys' lineage. There are things they don't need to know yet."

Lucifer unsubtly looked up at the tree. "For dumping the fate of the world on their shoulders, more knowledge might be better."

"Regardless, that's not for you to share."

"Then why tell me?"

"So you understand how important it is to stay out of the way and let them continue on their own."

 _Oh, so you want me out of it then?_ "Speaking of 'on your own', you don't seem too put out by the death of my brother. It's rather interesting you picked this place for a conference considering he died by Azrael's blade."

"I didn't design this place." Uriel shuffled, slightly. "You'll get your due, Devil. If not by my hand then by someone else's."

"You think so?"

"I am not here to punish you. I can't harm you here, in any case, the sword would prevent it. The Morning Star is set to fall, again, in every universe. In every reality, good _will_ prevail over evil. God is the most powerful being in all universes, and He has chosen not to strike you down - yet - so you live. That is all. Eventually He will tire of your shenanigans. On that day, I will rejoice."

"Frankly, you don't look capable of rejoicing. Anyway, it is Michael here who must kill Lucifer, you clearly aren't content to wait for Dad's judgement in this case."

"Zachariah speaks to God, and God to him. So we follow his instructions."

Lucifer ground his teeth, not hiding anger in his voice. "Lovely. So annihilation of half of all humans on the planet will all be due to a game of _telephone_."

Uriel merely looked askance at him. "A game of, what?"

"Nevermind."

"Why do you care about humans?"

"What Uriel tried to do was wrong. That's all."

"You care about one human. Maybe a handful. You should have stood aside and let God's will be done."

"If Father himself came down for her I would still stand in His way."

"And you'll lose, like a rotten fruit fighting against a sandstorm."

Lucifer was getting tired of this Uriel. "Can you at least tell me who kidnapped Maze?"

He sighed, then answered, reluctantly, "Gabriel. We think."

"You think?"

He frowned. "We haven't seen him around in a while. He's been...out of touch."

"That or Dad, is it?" Lucifer shifted back, wearing his street clothes again. "Anyone else you haven't had recent celestial contact with who you want to blame for my demon's abduction? Michael?"

"He's In the wings, as it were. There are no suitable vessels for Michael, other than Dean. He would consume anyone else in moments."

Lucifer's jaw tightened. "Must be nice to run around down there without _his_ interference. That'll change if he wins, won't it?"

Uriel closed the distance between them slowly. "Doesn't matter. The earth will be clean. No more Demons, they'll all be in the lake of fire. _Lucifer_ will be defeated. It's no wonder you haven't started your own Armageddon. You'll lose." He smiled.

"I'm _aware_ I'd lose. I'm content with my lot."

"Your retirement? I'm sure that'll last. The only reason you're not in a cage is that your brothers don't know how to make one."

Amenadiel winced. "That is not how we deal with our siblings, cousin."

Uriel looked at him. "You're saying you wouldn't have been happy to stop retrieving him all the time?"

"I perform my duties as required."

"Only you failed, did you? He's been on earth for years, according to you. On top of that, you made a deal with the Adversary himself."

" _His_ demons don't run around murdering humans."

"And that makes it acceptable to fall under his sway? Because he's not _evil?"_

Amenadiel clenched his fists.

The sword flared.

Lucifer smiled tightly, allowing some fire in his eyes. "How about we wrap this up and I go then, hmm? I feel as though I should have a little private chat with my brother. Miss Stabby Pants On Fire over there is getting impatient."

Uriel squinted at him. "Hmmpf. I never want to see you here again. You will take the Winchesters with you so they can deal with your problem. They're going, so either take care of them while you're there or face the wrath of _my_ older brothers. Castiel can go or not, but he doesn't have much to do here without them. When the mess is cleaned up, you are not to return."

"Are you afraid I'll muck up your little apocalypse?"

He didn't answer.

Lucifer smirked.

* * *

The legion of angels didn't so much as 'give' Amenadiel back as 'put' him back. The party found themselves in the parking lot of Lucifer's LAPD without so much as a flash of light.

Castiel mildly informed them they were now in Lucifer's home plane.

Lucifer glared at Cas, unperturbed by the sudden change in venue. "If anything happens to them here, I'm still blaming you. I didn't want them to come, and I don't care who is responsible for putting us back here. Keep an eye on them."

Dean blinked, unsure of what to make of Lucifer's declaration. It seemed off the cuff, knee-jerk reactionary. He still wasn't quite used to a Devil who gave a shit about humans, and the emotion struck him as genuine. Of course, it's not like he could do anything to Cas, right?

Amenadiel, now present in the flesh and looking a little dazed, focused enough on Cas to glare at him too. "That stunt you pulled to banish me won't work here." He reconsidered in light of the last few days. "Shouldn't. All the same, don't try it." He started to roll his shoulders, then stopped, noticing activity near the front doors of the station. He frowned.

Cas nodded. "I won't. I suspect you're correct. Pure angel blood in a sigil might do great harm." He stretched his fingers, frowning. "I believe my body is not treated as a 'vessel' here. It's strange."

Lucifer looked around and picked a car at random. "Maze, be a dear and check on the club?" He opened the door and started it at the same time, forgoing sitting in the driver's seat first.

He tossed her his empty flask too. Maze snatched it from the air. "Sure. I need a real shower anyway."

Dean muttered a variety of curses under his breath, thinking about Baby and Satan's magic car power.

"Brother, why don't you go with her?" Lucifer gestured, "You look like you've been through a cosmic ringer."

Amenadiel agreed, but grudgingly. "Probably a sound idea. I won't be used to having my physical form back on Earth yet." He huffed. "You know, they're serious about not wanting you back. Even the angels with vessels are powerful."

Lucifer held the car door for Maze as she got in. "You think that, do you?"

"You're upsetting the balance. They know you were there now, and do not want you to further interfere with the apocalypse. They said they would have forced you back here either way and that I am not to transport you back there under any circumstances."

Well, that was mildly alarming. Dean looked at Cas for a reaction but got nothing to the contrary.

"Would have? Well, since they apparently had some sort of discussion on that, I wonder if they weren't pulling your tail feathers, brother."

"They're…distracted."

"I bet. End of the world tends to do that."

Dean cleared his throat. "Looks like you're stuck with us until we deal with the demon. I'm assuming one of you freaks can get us back without actually setting foot on our...home land?"

Lucifer growled. "Amenadiel will take you back. That said, I'm quite sure I don't need your help, and he could deposit you home right now."

"And the Host seems to think otherwise. I don't like any of them, but since they want us here, I'd rather us not be in the middle of a celestial tug-of-war. Let's just get this over with. Where's your car?"

Sam nodded. "I for one do not want this to turn into a _literal_ tug of war. I know where Dean and I tend to end up under those circumstances."

"Back at Lux, where I left on this little adventure. I can steal another one, but we're making a stop first."

"Where?"

Lucifer turned and walked toward the precinct building. Dean sighed. Sam echoed it.

Lucifer wanted to see his not-girlfriend before they got started Hunting. The driving urge to not let him out of their sight won over splitting up - plus they didn't have Baby here. Dean didn't want to admit he was now curious about this Decker woman anyway, and why everything else was the same except her. He was sure Sam felt the same way, if not more so.

The resemblance to the police station they just saw was exact, down to Janine at the front desk, who greeted Lucifer by name this time, with a wave. She smiled at the group coming in as a recently familiar face approached from the inner doors, in a grey polo and a light leather coat over his arm.

Dan, headed out the door, slowed when he saw them, who had no idea who they were. That said, his eyes lit up in recognition but not much else when he spotted Lucifer. Dean half hoped for a line of salt across the front door and people unhappy to see their 'consultant,' but the ex-husband of the woman Lucifer was currently hitting on appeared at least tolerant of him. Said Detective even stopped in his exit and slapped Lucifer on the shoulder, who responded with an affronted look. Dan ignored it.

Despite the now ground-in knowledge that all his co-workers here 'knew' who he was at least in name, both brothers simultaneously winced at Dan's: "Lucifer, Chloe is going to _kill_ you!"

Cas looked mildly interested. "How is she going to accomplish that? Does she have knives too?"

"Oh good, your friends are weird too. What's he doing in a trenchcoat in L.A.? Where have you been? We've got a murder the Lieutenant wants you to look at - Ella took photos, but it was a real mess; frankly it's going to give me nightmares for days." He side-eyed the men following the Devil around, like they were the freaks here, as opposed to literal Satan. Dean smirked. _Nightmares. Sure. You don't know nightmares, buddy._

Dean offered his hand. "Hello, Dan, I'm Dean, this is Sam. Nice to meet you for the first time...ever." This Dan struck him as…judgier for some reason, the grey-blue eyes maybe a hair cooler.

Dan started to nod, then stopped, squinting at Dean. "Have we met?" He didn't quite catch that he was greeted with his name without volunteering it first.

Sam improvised. "Lucifer can't stop talking about you. You're one of his favorite humans, apparently." He nodded.

"Uhm. Okay. Are you another brother of his? Are all devils and angels over six foot?" Dan's joke fell flat.

Lucifer pointed at Cas, smiling. "Daniel, Castiel is a cousin. Sam and Dean are mortals like yourself. Perhaps a hair more useful, however."

"Oh, _Castiel._ Of course. Okay, then. Get your Devil butt inside, Chloe wants you."

"Always happy to be wanted. Where are you off to? Pudding convention?"

"My day to pick up Trixie from school. I'll be back later. You are going to love this murder case, have fun." He started to walk off, then hesitated. "Speaking of, My puddings are all _clearly_ labeled this week, so don't steal them."

Sam exchanged looks with Dean. "If we survive the apocalypse we are so retiring here."

Inside, coming down the stairs, Ella spotted them first and elbowed Chloe, pointing at the walkway. "Lucifer's back. And he has a parade."

"Thank God! Where have you been? Are you okay?" She smiled, relief evident in her voice. A couple of quick steps brought her up to the group.

Dean felt his eyes roll involuntarily.

"Dear old Dad could tell you, but It was Amenadiel that has been of assistance, not God."

Dean muttered under his breath, "This is never going to end, is it?"

Detective Decker hugged Lucifer, who froze up slightly. Her arms went around him in a tight squeeze, her small frame pressed up against him without a hint of doubt. Dean couldn't even see the top of her head over his shoulders, but he did see Lucifer awkwardly return the hug. Sam could, and her head was right up against his chest, before pulling back with a smile, letting go with a brush of his sleeve.

Ella waved and hung back, grinning and giving Chloe some space.

She was dressed smartly, slim dark trousers with a coordinating jacket and light blouse. Even with her hair pulled back in a tight, clean bun, it was easy to see why Lucifer was hot for her. No matter what she believed, or not, about him, she addressed him with absolutely no trepidation. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Dean wondered if she could face down a real monster. Then wondered when he stopped putting Lucifer in that category. Huh.

Cheerful and blunt, Lucifer responded, "Funny story. Mazikeen had been kidnapped into their -" He pointed "-alternate reality, she rescued herself, and now there's a demon on this side who might be a problem. The brothers here are going to deal with it, and then Amenadiel will shunt them and Cas on back home. Everything will be fine."

Cas, Dean, and Sam froze. Sam blurted, "you can't just-"

Chloe rolled her eyes in a way that struck Dean as friendly and well-practiced. "So the longer you're out of touch, the higher your crazy goes. Good to know."

Lucifer turned back to Cas with a 'See what I have to deal with?' Expression and gesture.

She continued, "Castiel, it's nice that Lucifer has such a big family, but if you're related by marriage instead of blood, I suggest you get out while you can."

Cas blinked. "My vessel was in a matrimonial relationship before he offered his services. I'm not sure if that is still the case. However, 'blood' is not accurate either as I am pure energy in my natural state. God created all of us, so, technically we're all related to each other in some small way, even you and I."

Chloe patted him gently on the arm. "Okay, it's too late for you, I guess. Some days it's actually fun for me to be friends with Lucifer though, so not all hope is lost for your wife."

She turned back to her partner, planting a finger in the middle of his chest with a jab, unconcerned about her treatment of the immortal. "You, I'm glad you have new friends, but we have work to do now that you're back."

"Ah, well, I'm just popping in for a moment to say hello, and we'll be on our way. Dealing with the fate of the universe and all."

She did not look amused. "Seriously? This is the first piece of weirdo evidence we've had in months that you might be able to shed some light on and you're taking off again? Can you at least take a look at the thing? It's not the murder weapon, but it was at the scene - a kind of huge metal cup"

Sam perked up. "Cup?"

Chloe made a face. "Sorry, this is evidence from two murders, you might be friends of Lucifer's but he's the consultant."

Sam cleared his throat. "...I don't suppose it's heavy brass? It might or might not have symbols on the side, it really doesn't have to be anything other than a heavy cup, like a large goblet or a wide, flat bowl, but brass seems to be favored."

"Actually, yeah, that's accurate. So you're, what, consultants too?"

"Uhm. Private contractors." He nodded. It was a little surreal not going in with a cover name and story, but he didn't know if their FBI badges would look the same, and an LAPD officer would probably spot a fake. Country sheriffs not so much, but here in the heart of a bustling precinct, it wasn't worth chancing it. "But yes, we have a lot of experience with this sort of thing." Sam nodded. "We track down, uhm, those who use occult methods when conducting violent acts."

She looked at Lucifer for reassurance, and he smiled brightly. "They're quite passable at what they do, from what I've seen."

"Coming from Lucifer, that's high praise. Alright, I don't have a better term for it. Someone slit a woman's throat and caught her blood in it. Two different times. They left it behind after throwing the blood all over an alley. I feel bad for whoever Ella is sending out to be the cleanup crew."

Lucifer growled, annoyance in his voice. "That sounds like something that used to happen before I had the method erased from history as often as possible. It was rarely effective anyway, here. Sammy seems to have an inkling of it."

Sam shot him a look. "Don't look at me; it's how...people communicate with demons when they need to make contact quickly. Not all demons carry cell phones."

"Maze does."

Chloe appeared to be counting to ten. Slowly. She ran it through her brain into something that made sense to her. "So we have another Satan worshipping cult on our hands?"

He shook his head slightly. "That last lot was harmless. Idiots, but harmless. These clearly are not."

"The goat head guys? So you know who is responsible for this?" Chloe looked at Dean. "Seems like you guys had good timing today. I can see why you're friends with Lucifer."

Sam jerked but didn't correct her. Dean did. " _Friends_ is a stretch. We're associates for now."

"Come now, we're practically bosom buddies at this point. We haven't left each other's sides since we met!" Lucifer ignored Sam's glare. "In fact, they believe me when they found out I was the Devil. That's rare in a human. I didn't actually need to bring them here, but I wanted their opinions regarding you, Detective."

"They what? Wait, regarding what, exactly?" Chloe gave him a look of suspicion.

Affably, "Remember when you shot me?"

She looked around quickly for other people near her desk, then leaned closer to him with a hiss. "Oh, my God, how many times do I have to apologize for that?"

"Wrong deity. Again. You needn't apologize, Detective, I did tell you to shoot me. I'm merely trying to solve the puzzle." Lucifer turned to Dean, arching an eyebrow. "Does she set off any-" He wiggled his fingers at them. "Flags? Bells? Anything of that sort?"

Dean side-eyed him. "It doesn't work that way. If you're looking for a spell to be cast, Sam would be the one to do that."

Cas, however finally looked at her closely, his usually flat expression altering into something softer. He walked up to her, eyes widening a little. Chloe merely raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down. Cas stood transfixed. "She's touched by God."

Lucifer scowled. "What does that mean?"

Chloe slapped a hand over her face. The angel reached out to touch her shoulder. She didn't see him move but cracked her fingers apart when she felt his hand on her shoulder.

Chloe treated him with an eye-roll, only one blue eye visible under her hand. "Castiel, you need a better come-on. I've been dealing with Lucifer's constant _Luciferness_ for over a year now. You should at least try something along the lines of 'moody vampire' instead of the same schtick I've already been dealing with. And a trenchcoat in L.A.? Really?"

Again, Lucifer gestured vaguely and grinned.

Cas dropped his hand, stuffing both in pockets. "I don't know any moody vampires. Or any other vampires. If I did, they would kill them quickly." He indicated the brothers.

Chloe's huff came with the barest of smiles, looking back at her partner. "Lucifer, are you expecting to fly off again or will you be answering your phone next time?"

"For you darling, always. Barring unforeseen circumstances."

Castiel made a face. "He can't fly. He doesn't have wings anymore."

She let out her breath with a sign. "It's certainly a good story for the scars, I'll give you that. Lucifer, you better call Charlotte right away, if you haven't already. She's a little beside herself."

"Mu- Mrs. Richards? Is she alright?" Lucifer actually looked a little panicked.

Dean narrowed his eyes. _Lucifer forgot to call his mom. My world has gone insane._ Lucifer's tone was definitely different from earlier, when he flirted with, well, everyone. He smiled differently. His body language more relaxed and... _happy?_ Chloe stood close to him, friendly, sneaking glances. They'd been working together over a year and she still hasn't figured it out? None of them had?

 _Speaking of range._ Dean jerked his head at Sam to step away, who picked up his gesture and did so, moving back several feet. Dean flicked the back of Lucifer's arm.

He turned sharply. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Just checking something."

Ella came over with the item in an evidence bag.

Sam glanced at it, turning it over briefly in the plastic. "Yeah, that's the kind of thing I would have expected." He debated with speaking openly with Chloe around, but she seemed to either put up with Lucifer or secretly believe him, so he kept going. "So now you have two people murdered here, that we know of, plus a demon possession."

Ella side-eyed Lucifer. "Possession? Like, possession, possession?"

Dean pinched his nose. "Just take our word for it that something strange is happening. Dan said there was a murder just this morning? Have any weird out-of-season natural phenomena been happening?"

"We get earthquakes here pretty often, so there's that, but not that I know of otherwise. Why?"

The words tasted sour in his mouth as Dean spoke them. "Never mind. Hopefully, it won't come up."

The power went out.

A backup generator came on.

"Or, maybe it will." He ignored Sam's pointed look.

Chloe leaned on her desk. "That's the second time this morning." Unconcerned, she continued, "Any ideas on who we should be looking for. With the 'demon possession'?" She used air quotes on the last bit. Sam decided she was firmly in the non-believing camp, putting up with Lucifer for some who-knows-what-reason.

Ella crossed her arms. "You can't tell me the power flickers are related to the two murders?"

Dean handled Ella a little more carefully. "Maybe not directly, but weird occurrences seem to join hands often. If two different things are happening in the same area, they could have the same cause."

Lucifer looked at Sam for guidance, who shrugged unhelpfully but made a guess. "Could be anyone, maybe near where the reality tear occurred, if you know where that is. Cas, can you find it?"

"Probably."

"If it's a demon we're familiar with we might have a better idea of what human they're riding. Meg, for example, prefers transient women."

Chloe took a moment to filter that. "Do you want to look at our missing persons sheets?"

"I can take copies with us when we head out, but it's unlikely that would help."

"We can take copies because I'm going with you."

Lucifer worked his jaw. "Detective."

"That's final."

Her phone buzzed. She picked it up. "Dan? What's up?"

The boys didn't hear his voice on the other end, but Lucifer did. Both he and Chloe went pale. She barked, "When.. ? Yeah...Okay. Crap. Do you want to wait at the school or go by my apartment to see…Okay." She hung up, her face quite still.

She looked at Lucifer, her face still. "Trixie's missing."

"LUCIFER!"

Everyone looked up. A mid-age blonde woman in a white suit braced against the railing on the walkway. "Where have you been? Where's Amenadiel?" She looked down at Cas. "Castiel? Honey? Why are you here?"

Cas tilted his head up. "Mom?"


	17. Hell breaks loose

Chloe gazed up, slack-jawed, at a beaming Mrs. Richards, who flew down the steps and embraced Castiel as if she's known him her entire life.

 _Mom? How did these people function?_

Tall and willowy, the woman threw her arms around a surprised Cas and hugged him until his coat crinkled, burying her face against his hair. Cas gulped. He lifted an arm awkwardly and patted her back, about as stunned as Chloe. For the shortest moment, he _relaxed_ , shoulders dropping and leaning slightly into her arms.

"Little Castiel! You've grown so much." She patted his head gently, rocking on her stiletto heels. "What are you doing here, baby?" her hands cupped his face, looking down at him from a few inches higher, exactly like a mother looking adoringly down at a young child.

Dean thought he might be witnessing an event that would never be repeated, Cas letting his guard down. Then his shields shot up again, closing him off again.

They looked so much like Ella and Lucifer embracing that Chloe snorted in spite of herself. Dean joined her, sharing some similar thought process. She spared Lucifer a sharp glance. "How many step-siblings do you have anyway?" She snapped out of it when her phone buzzed in her hand. "Never mind, I need to go to my place and see if Trixie turned up there. And send me an invite to the next family reunion. I want to meet everyone sometime."

For some reason, Dean choked on air.

Cas extracted himself. Charlotte clasped her hands over her face, sniffling and eyes bright with unshed tears. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but she kept on welling up. "It's so good to see you! How's my favorite baby angel?"

Cas winced. "Mother!"

Even Lucifer looked aghast. "Mum? Favorite, really? Cas is almost useless compared to the rest of us. He can't even slow down time like Amenadiel. I can certainly understand why you had him then petered off."

The Goddess' eyes snapped open, fixing on her other child with a wild fire brewing in them. "YOU!" She let go of Cas and stomped over to him, quivering with leaking power and rage. Cas blinked, watching her step away with his arm still up. She rounded on him. "You left me alone for DAYS! I didn't know where any of you were! You didn't call me! I've been worried sick! Why isn't Amenadiel with you? Is he alright?"

Chloe took a careful step back. So did everyone else.

Her partner bowed up. "Honestly. it wasn't that long, Mum, you're making a huge deal out of nothing. We barely stepped off the metaphysical front porch." He cocked his head at Chloe. "Time passed the same here right? I haven't been gone for months or anything silly like that, have I?" He gave her a sly smile, applying his charm. "I imagine you would have missed me much more if it had been overly long."

Charlotte threw out her hand and gripped his chin, forcing him to look at her. "Look at your mother when She's talking to you! DO NOT do that again. Ever. The next time you depart this plane, you let me know before doing it, you got that mister? I thought you were both _gone._ I almost _prayed_ to your father since _you_ weren't answering! Do you have any idea how worried I was about you?"

Sam bit his lip. Hard. Watching Lucifer being scolded like a child isn't something he would have missed for the world. He snuck a look at Dean, who appeared to be recording it on his phone.

Lucifer wilted. A little. "I assure you-"

She leaned into him, inch for inch at least as tall as him, light features to his dark, looking him dead in the eyes. "I liked you better when you didn't have an accent. You're all-" She waved her hands. "- _human-y_ now. I hate it! Can't you just go back to being my little Morningstar?"

He arched an eyebrow but otherwise didn't move. "Oh, I don't know, Mum, since you helped kick me out of heaven, I haven't been inclined to include you in my current plans. Do _you_ know how hard it is to get ash out of your clothes? I can't even keep a reasonable wardrobe of any kind _in Hell_ since it constantly gets eaten by rat demons or covered in ash."

"Your pride is so wrapped up in imitating _them_! I might know how hard it is to _dress_ in Hell, if I had anything to wear. That skank dress you had me put on then demanded I remove was the second thing I wore in millenia. At least you get to leave there once in a while, figure out all these silly human rules and take a vacation."

Absolutely no one else in the building made a peep. Even the phones on desks nearby stayed quiet.

The grinding of his jaw was audible in the dead quiet. "When Dad allows it."

"Ugh. You sound like one of the human children I've been saddled with. You _ran_ Hell, it's not like you couldn't have made my stay at least a little nicer, for old times' sake."

Lucifer backed away, but not down. "Right, as if you _deserved_ any hospitality on my part, after what you did to me. Not a _word_ after, not a letter nothing. Of all my family I ever -" he huffed. "I simply returned the favor. And I didn't put you there, Dad did!"

"As you're aware, Hell isn't a nice place to be. You could have at least visited me! I only had Maze for company!"

He gave her a cold smile, stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets. "And you're telling me that she _wasn't_ a perfect hostess? Tsk. I shall have to scold her. I rarely have to discipline _my_ creations, Mother."

The slap resounded throughout the floor. Charlotte growled and began to stalk off back to her office. She abruptly spun and squeezed Cas again, kissing him on the cheek in a stark reversal. "Don't be a stranger. I've missed you."

Cas' eyes refocused with effort. "are you leaving?"

She growled. "It's hardly a good storm off if I don't leave. If Lucifer keeps his mouth shut, I'll consider staying. We do have much to talk about. You were still practically a babe in my arms when I was sent away."

Dean felt more and more out of place, despite he and Sam having the most information - save Lucifer. Dean cleared his throat noisily.

Sam wiped his face with a groan, trying to decide the best way to address her. _Hello, Mrs. God_. He opted for something that might keep his brain intact. "Mrs. Richards? forgive me for saying this, but please tell me you don't work for the LAPD too."

She redirected her attention to him and he could feel it in his bones. She flipped a mental switch and seemed to recall she was also partly human, at least now. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm here for one of my clients. I'm some sort of attorney. A very good one, I believe." she nodded. She held Cas with one hand, clutching his arm in a death grip. She regarded Sam crossly, then gave him a second, much longer look that made Sam feel naked. Showed up to class without clothes, late and sans homework in a bad dream kind of naked. He shivered. Her look turned predatory. "Castiel, honey, is this one of your little playmates? I like him. He's very well made."

Dean took one long step to the side. Were all Celestials here insane? And perpetually horny?

Lucifer shuffled. "Really, mum, we have other things to worry about right now."

Sam let out a nervous breath.

"I told you to be quiet."

Lucifer licked his lips. "There's plenty of time for that later." A cheeky grin slid across his face as he clapped Sam on the shoulder. "Besides, I already called dibs on Sammy there. You can't have him."

Sam began to understand why Chloe had such a practiced eye roll. He tried to move out from under Lucifer's hand without reaching for it. He was unsuccessful. "Do you always talk with your mother this way?"

Ignoring Sam's concerns, he nodded to Dean. "His brother, Dean, is rather pretty too. Both are quite handsome, bet it runs in the fam."

Someone walked over his grave as those piercing blue eyes latched onto Dean. Not that he didn't like blondes quite a bit, and even cougars often made for a fun roll in the proverbial hay. _This_ woman scared the shit out of him. "Ah, not that I don't appreciate compliments, but we have someone to find." Trying to distract her and himself, he addressed Chloe. "So, it's been great meeting you and um, Charlotte, but you sound very busy."

Chloe shook her head. "It's just another Tuesday around here."

Sam flinched.

"Okay, maybe slightly weirder than normal. Mrs. Richards, did you need anything for your client before we head out of here?"

Lucifer blinked and looked around quickly with a frown.

Charlotte gave Cas one last hug. "No, I'm done here. I'll head back to my firm now." she let go, rubbing his head affectionately as if dropping him off at his first day at school. "Bye, baby."

Chloe grabbed her bag and threw it over a shoulder, texting something on her phone. "Maze came back with you, Lucifer? Can you please send her by the apartment? Anything that saves time. I'm not super worried just yet, but it's not like Trix to vanish like this. Can Maze swing by your apartment too? She might have gone there if she felt particularly rebellious, but frankly I hope not."

Lucifer agreed happily, back on stable ground. "Of course, Detective, that's on her to-do list before regrouping anyway. Are you concerned for your spawn's wellbeing?"

Her phone buzzed. Dan reported that she was nowhere to be seen at school, wasn't hiding out there somewhere on the grounds that he could find. Next stop was his place. Chloe texted something back without even looking at her phone.

"She was all weird this morning, I hope she's not sick." Chloe walked past Dean with barely a glance, headed for the door.

Dean spent a little too long admiring her back, as he caught Lucifer glaring at him. He shrugged, then risked leaning in. "You have good taste in women, I'll give you that."

"Of course I do." He deliberately peered at Sam. "Men too."

Dean pinched his nose. "Can you please not talk to me about my brother that way?"

"Hmmm. I guess I'll have to keep all my naughty thoughts to myself."

"For the love of all things holy, please _please_ do that."

"For now."

Two can play at that game. Casually, "I think I like your mom. A little older than my type, but she seems...lively."

"Oh yes, a real firecracker. Why - wait a second! You are absolutely forbidden from sleeping with her. You are _not_ to think about my mother that way."

Lucifer appeared completely appalled, much to Dean's satisfaction. "Now you know how I feel when you comment on Sam."

He scoffed. "That's hardly in the same category, as _anything._ Your miserable human flesh would melt off your bones if you even caught a glimpse of her true self. You two are true mortals. Even if you don't stay dead."

"Sam's my blood. But I've seen how much you care about most of your family. Which is not at all."

"They didn't give a whit about me, so why should I care about them? Amenadiel is the only brother I even see regularly and that's because he's forced to."

"And they're all you have. Just like Sammy's all I got left. But that's not why. Maybe if you had just one brother instead of, what, thousands? You'd understand."

"Hmmmpf." Lucifer didn't respond otherwise but scratched the back of his head. Dean thought about his red, cracked skin and wondered what the full force of the effect was like.

Sam, naturally, remained observant of the important part of the conversation, stepping after Chloe and catching up to her with long strides. "Weird how?"

Chloe looked up from her texting. "Nothing worth stressing over. I don't think she slept well. I'm more concerned she's disoriented or just can't contact me or something." She gave him another glance. "You have kids? Nephew or niece?"

"Ah, no kids, no. Probably not in my future. Just the one for you and, uh, Dan?"

Chloe showed him a photo of her daughter on her phone, smiling fondly. The girl had dark features, unlike either parent. "Usually everyone thinks Lucifer is her father when they see us together. She took after Dan's parents." She nearly missed a step. "wait, it's only been a few days and Lucifer talked about someone other than himself? I'm in shock."

Sam checked over his shoulder. Dean and the others were gathering Cas. Lucifer looked away again, tense, concerned. "He seems to like you."

"Not enough to drop the Satan act. It's, you know, cute when he's not driving me to pull my hair out. He's done wonders moving along interrogations here at work, I'll give him that."

"Satan. Cute."

Peeking back again, she added, "Well, you know him. He's persistent. He won't let go of an idea once he has one, which can be either good or bad or both. He's helped us catch any number of murderers, even if he's… unorthodox."

Sam smiled. "So, you don't buy it."

Chloe side eyed him. Clearly, she had no issues talking to tall men. "Not really, no. It's how he functions as a person, and I almost can't imagine him any other way at this point. If he suddenly stopped being Lucifer, I think the entire precinct would need an adjustment period. I've been working with him as _Lucifer_ for so long now that it'd be more weird if he stopped the act. And anyway, Trixie adores him. Dan not so much. Why are _you_ putting up with him? Ex-lover?"

"No!" Sam scratched his neck, wondering a little that Chloe appeared unfazed by the idea. "Ah, no. He's not my type. On many, _many_ levels. You met a few?"

"Exes? Oh yeah, dozens, if one night stands even qualify as 'exes'. His club is a playground. There was a period early in our working relationship when there was no telling what I'd be walking into if I dropped by his penthouse without warning." Her lip twisted. "No, yeah, actually, I have a pretty good idea of what goes on up there, regularly. If you haven't been up to his penthouse yet, make sure he's not naked when you go." She suddenly blinked a few times. "Wait, crap, are you another family member? What was your last name again?"

"Not quite that either, but I appreciate the warning. Winchester."

"Like the gun? You guys meet on a job?"

"You could say that, yes." Sam suddenly wondered what their dad would make of their current situation. Other than shooting Lucifer in the face with the Colt just to test it. It might have even worked with the 'vulnerability' thing. He wondered if the special gun would ever turn up again or if it was out of reach for good. Or if the caged Lucifer had any similar vulnerabilities due to the demon blood.

His back teeth itched just thinking about it. He had been out of touch with Ruby but he shouldn't be feeling it anytime soon.

Blue-green eyes tilted up at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, it's nothing."

Lucifer caught up, pulling Sam off to the side with a firm grab of his arm. " _Someone_ is trying to talk to me."

By now, they were outside again, headed for what Sam assumed was Chloe's car. Lucifer's grip on his arm felt like a vise. The intensity of his endless gaze reminded Sam there were alternate means of communication. He allowed himself to be guided further away. "Another murder?"

Lucifer abruptly stopping as if rooted to the asphalt, his eyes burning and heat licking off his body. "No! Get out of her!"

Chloe stopped, turning. Sam pulled Lucifer around, facing away from her. "Hey, who? Can you tell which demon it is? Who is it possessing?

Lucifer broke off, nearly throwing Sam to the parking lot ground. Sam was well-balanced, stepping away, hands held up. The Devil blinked his eyes back to normal, involuntarily flexing his shoulders. "I have to go."

Chloe cocked an eyebrow. "Now really isn't the time."

"I know where Beatrice is. You should stay here, it won't be safe."

"Like hell I will. How do you know?

"She...called to me."

Chloe glanced at her phone.

"Just, stay here, please, Detective."

For the thirteenth time in two days, Sam thought to himself that Lucifer had to be the weirdest Devil ever.

She squinted at him. Hard. "If you're messing with me right now, I'm getting you fired. And I don't care how, but I'm never working with you again."

"I give you my word. I know where she is."

Dean and Cas caught the last half of the conversation. Dean looked around automatically for Baby, growling to himself. "We'll need to stop for supplies. Paint at least."

Chloe let the weirdness wash over her. "Then let's go. Your friends are coming?"

Lucifer hadn't stopped walking, striding for a larger police van. "This one. If you aren't staying behind, Detective, then at least stay near me, until we get there."


	18. Crisis of Faith pt 1

Sam jerked to a stop, bangs flying. "Hey, is Ella Catholic?"

Lucifer had one Louboutin in the van. "Well, she's _something._ Has a bloody crucifix necklace she plays with when she's thinking. Gives me the creeps." Really, what kind of life prompts questions like those in a crisis?

Sam brushed his hair back out of his face. "The other Ella had a rosary in her police bag, I'm going to run back and see if there's one here. We're going to need it."

"For Dads sake, just get a haircut already." His nose twitched. "Do you need religious symbols? Is that really necessary?"

"Well, can _you_ make holy water?"

Lucifer sputtered. " _You bloody well know-_ "

"I'll be right back then." Sam bolted back inside.

 _At least the man was decisive. "_ Make it snappy or I'm leaving you behind!"

Chloe stepped away to call her ex, pacing fast. "...He won't say. Well come back and you can tell him that yourself...no, I'll text you when I know more...yeah, me too." She dropped her phone into her pocket, glaring at everyone and nothing. Lucifer had half a mind to drive off without her.

Dean felt the same, apparently. He inched over to her. "You probably should stay here. We've seen some shit go down before."

Chloe glared at him. "Do _you_ have kids?"

" _God_ , no. I hope not. I'm pretty sure I don't."

She went full side-eye on him. "Get back to me when you do."

Sam reappeared, patting his pocket. Dean didn't ask if he stole it or borrowed it - it didn't matter for their purposes.

The van started up. She climbed in the passenger seat, too distracted to notice there weren't any keys in the ignition.

"We good? Anyone need to stop for lunch? We'll be lucky to make it there alive in this death trap."

"The van is only four years old, on par with your emotional age. Stop complaining and just drive."

A few minutes in, Chloe got a sneaking suspicion they were headed for Lux. Lucifer confirmed it but was tight-lipped about anything else of importance, like how he knew where Trixie was, exactly.

"She told me, I told you that. Quite a feat actually, all things considered. Your spawn is quite resilient."

He pulled over at Sam's insistence at a hardware store a few blocks from Lux. The spire at the top of the building was easily visible from where they were. Chloe leaned out her window. " _We're_ going on ahead - catch up if you want. Take the back elevator inside up to the penthouse."

Lucifer blinked at her. "Detective?"

Chloe snapped at him. "Shut up and just be a civilian. Trixie's being held in your apartment, by an unknown captor. I don't even know why she called you instead of me, but for now I'm believing you. Actually, take _my_ phone and see if there are responses from Dan when we get inside. I texted and told him it seemed like we were headed to Lux. Police backup will be on the way."

Sam counted himself impressed. Granted, no firearm short of the Colt was going to kill a demon, but at least she seemed like she could handle whatever waited for them, or maybe at least slow it down. Lucifer dealt with the other demon just fine, so they should be fine. Probably. That last line didn't sound like the best idea though. "Maybe we should keep more police out-"

She glared at him in a way that brooked no argument. "I don't know who you normally work with, or what you really do, but you're civilians here too, as far as I'm concerned. None of _you_ should be going."

Dean watched the police van race off, the white Lux building reaching for the sky just a few blocks away. "I like her. Too bad she's going to get herself killed at this rate."

They'd seen it too many times to count. Not too many times not to care, but it wasn't the first time they watched someone charge head-first into their doom.

Sam sighed. "Who knows, maybe this one will make it." He didn't sound convinced.

* * *

Lucifer barely paused for a breath of relief finding his club as it should be at least from outside Without slowing down, he flung the door open from ten feet away while moving, half-remembering the last time a door involved unexpected results. He didn't see any sigils painted in blood or anything else, but he wasn't taking chances.

Chloe either hadn't noticed or didn't realize he was the one responsible. She started, but continued inside, right behind him and wishing for back-up to get here, now.

Lucifer _did_ pause in the middle of the vacant club floor to yell at the ceiling. "AMENADIEL! GET YOUR USELESS FEATHERED ARSE OVER HERE!" He ground his teeth at nothing, Chloe looking more and more bewildered and on the verge of calling a mental hospital. She had her gun out, all the same, the only one out of all of them armed, as far as she knew. Lucifer continued after the second passed, swearing at air and stepping into the golden-walled elevator.

"What on earth was that about?"

"I'm not in the mood to stop and pray."

Lucifer could hear her teeth grinding from two feet away.

He jerked his head at Chloe, holding the elevator door open. "Detective, call Maze, would you? While you stay down here and wait for me to deal with this?"

She didn't put up her sidearm. "Can't _you_? And no." She stood in front of the button panel and didn't budge. He sighed, dropping his hand. The doors closed. Chloe shivered, feeling as though she just walked into a freezer.

"My phone doesn't work here anymore, she's got my SIM card. Had to have it swapped out for all the good it ended up doing." he cocked his head. "Bloody hell. Hers probably won't work either."

Exasperated with his Luciferness, she sighed. "What'd you do, go overseas?"

He looked at her like she was the crazy one in this conversation. "Of course not, told you, dimension hopping. I don't recommend it. I'm of half a mind to go back there and buy 'Rodeo' just so I can burn it to the ground."

 _What? Wait, didn't he say…?_ "How did Trixie call you then?"

He huffed. "She called _to_ me, a prayer. She got around the thing that's holding her to tell me where she is."

She shoved him back, taking center front in the middle of the doors and waiting for them to open. She was already irritable about stopping at a hardware store for bags of salt, paint, cording and God knows what else his new boytoy tagalongs ran inside for, even if they barely stopped to shove them out of the vehicle.

"Lucifer, I swear to God-"

"Must you?"

She mentally swore to herself instead. The doors slid apart softly and Chloe stepped out, pistol at the ready and up. The apartment was deathly quiet. She didn't leave room for Lucifer to exit until she saw Trixie, sitting at the bar. She kept her gun pointed elsewhere, but ready. The girl glared at her mother with an unsettling glint in her eyes. Chloe wasn't going to let Lucifer out of the elevator either until she was sure they wouldn't just become more hostages.

So he was right about _one_ thing. Trixie was here in his apartment. She couldn't see anyone holding or threatening her. Her instincts were screaming at her to run away, take the elevator back down, jump out a window, just do _anything_ to get out.

She didn't.

Chloe took one long step out and spun left and right, looking for anyone else. "Who's here? Show yourself!"

Trixie's eyes narrowed. "Just me." Her voice was flat. For some reason, she wore one of Lucifer's favorite crisp white button-up shirts over the jeans and sneakers she wore this morning with the sleeves were rolled up. On any other day, she would have looked adorable, the shirttail hanging below the barstool. Her pants and shoes were both caked with something dry and dark and unreflective. Chloe had seen far too many crime scenes not to know what it was, but she shoved it to the back of her head for now. All that mattered was that her daughter was alive and seemed to be safe. She didn't look hurt, or scared, despite the jeans looking to be more stained than clean.

Chloe pointed her weapon toward the floor and well away from Trixie. Lucifer grabbed her arm as she started to walk further in. "Wait."

She glanced at the hand on her arm, gritting her teeth. "What now?"

Lucifer raised his hand, palm up, looking at Trixie. His body radiated tension and anger. "You need to get out of her."

She glanced up at his face, puzzled by his reaction. What was he doing?

"No, I don't." She smirked, making a joke to herself with the next word. "Sammy."

Chloe was completely lost. The air grew heavy, stifling even.

"That's not any version of my name." He took a half-step in front of her, blocking Chloe's line of sight. "You will leave her, one way or another." His upraised hand, the one with the ring, clenched tightly into a fist.

Her stomach lurched as _power_ rolled off him in a wave.

Trixie buckled and screamed. " _Mooooooooooooooooooooooooom!_ "

" _Trix!_ " She bolted, breaking Lucifer's grip. She was halfway across the room before Trixie's eyes flashed hazy white and Chloe found herself bodily thrown sideways and into the glass coffee table, where it shattered under her. Shards exploded and flew, scattering across the middle of the living room and cutting her clothes and face. Spinning, the gun went a different direction as she lost control of it.

" _Chloe_ _?!_ " Lucifer swore and dove after her, brushing loose hairs out of her face. He picked pieces of glass off her jacket. "Detective? Are you alright?" She felt blood running down her face from her hairline, but it was more of a nuisance than anything else. There were two Lucifers in her unfocused vision, and that _was_ a problem. She wiped the blood off her face and blinked, trying to clear up her sensory signals. He looked down at her, his eyes flashing between anger and worry, swimming with red licks of fire. He looked away from her and back several times, the red glint traveling with his face. Faces.

 _What?_

She blinked and it was gone, he became one Lucifer again as she concentrated, then turned her eyes back to daughter. Or who she thought was her daughter.

Trixie's bland expression belied the dangerous tone of her voice. "You really want to talk to me first."

Chloe groaned, getting her feet under her and crouching on the floor. "Trixie? Lucifer?"

He gripped her shoulder. _When had he moved this close to her? He was way over there a moment ago, wasn't he?_ "Stay down, Detective."

The girl smiled softly, white-eyed. "Right, like I won't hurt her if she just stays there. You shouldn't have brought her."

Lucifer looked at Trixie, standing and cocking his head. "Speaking of things that shouldn't be here. Lily."

Chloe clawed her way up Lucifer, unable to stand up on her own, but damned if she was going to wait helplessly on the floor. "Trixie?! What's wrong with her?" he grabbed her around the waist to keep her from lunging again. She stopped, staring. Opaque white eyes barely glanced at her. The eyes were on Lucifer.

She smiled. "Isn't anyone going to ask me what I want?"

No one moved, then Chloe spoke, strained. "What do you want, baby?"

Trixie leaned on her hand, elbow on the bar. "My own little bright spot of the universe. Hell seems to be short a ruler. The only problem is, the other demons aren't listening to me."

Lucifer looked around. "Maze?" One of her knives rested on the bar.

"Your _bodyguard_ is preoccupied. I had to bring my own demons. Your hell isn't easy to get _into_. Funny how it's the other way, back where I'm from." She frowned. "I need _you_ for that, apparently."

He ground his teeth. "I can't take you there, nor would I."

Chloe couldn't take her eyes off her daughter, her lungs tightening with each breath.

She glared, anger rising. "Oh, but-"

He glared right back. "I literally _cannot._ I lack the wings to do it. I don't have the power to just up and _go_ like a bloody angel express. You're wasting your time. Get out of Beatrice, get out of my home and you can return to your rightful plane and cause havoc there."

"No wings, huh?" Trixie hopped off the bar stool. "It's true then?" The curly black pigtails cocked as she looked up at Lucifer, her voice dripping disdain.

Lucifer moved in front of her, blocking the view of her daughter. He held up his beringed hand, palm out and open. " _Leave_ Beatrice! I command you to _depart_ her!"

She smiled. "Luci, you really ought to watch your step."

He looked down quickly. Nothing. Maybe a vague outline of a wet circle. Something was wrong - most of his power was cut off. His eyes flew up to find the Devils Trap painted on his ceiling. His eyes burned. "I am going to destroy you, Lily."

"Humans were always going to be your downfall, Sam. This one fragile woman throws you off your game more than I ever would have expected. Oh, and just in case." She threw one of his lighters on the floor, igniting and burning an opposite circle of oil on the floor that flashed up from blue to bright gold flames then settled to burn a foot high, without consuming the fuel.

His eyes blazed. He stepped forward, but couldn't cross the flames. Trixie stuck her tongue out. Frustrated, he turned back to Chloe, clenching his fists. "Detective, _get out_ , I can't protect you from here!"

Chloe gaped, eyes flicking from the fire to the ceiling, then back to Trixie, her eyes still solid white. Those eyes turned on her. "That's right, mom. The Devil can't protect you _._ If every world is this soft, I can take them all, and give them to _my l_ ord. He _deserves_ them."

Trixie smiled at her captive. "Lucifer will be pleased I found an alternate vessel for him. Even better than the Winchester boy. I can't wait to watch him take you."

There were no pupils, but Chloe felt the hate in the gaze all the same. She swallowed on a dry throat. This wasn't Trixie. "I'm not leaving without my daughter."

This was it. Actual demon possession. She looked at Lucifer, the flames on his carpet neither spreading nor flaming out. He couldn't step beyond them despite the fact they were all of a foot high. He shifted his weight, glancing at her a few times, panicky. She followed his hands, pressed up against _nothing_.

 _Lucifer._

 _Wing scars._

Trixie smirked. "Then I guess you aren't leaving."

* * *

Sam hated it when kids got possessed.

It didn't happen often, since human kids tended to be physically weaker and shorter. But when it did, it got creepy as hell.

It took five minutes to run in and run out, grabbing paint and anything else that made sense. Dean and Sam split up, only one of them getting yelled at by an irate store manager on the way out the door for stealing. It was five minutes Sam worried they didn't _have_ , but they couldn't show up with nothing.

It was too late to paint circles. The plain, empty paint bucket and a rosary would make quick holy water once they had a place to fill it with tap water. Sam just hoped it still worked the same way. He threw matches, rope, paint, lighters, accelerant, road salt and a few other things into his improvised basket. As an afterthought, he grabbed some metal gardening stakes, a fresh rosemary plant, emergency candles and a duffle bag. He didn't have _any_ spell components otherwise, but salt and some herbs could go a long way.

He hated angels. Count on them to throw him and Dean into a situation they had to take care of without proper equipment.

He had a bad feeling about this.

Sam paused at the threshold. "Where the hell is Cas?"

* * *

Cas, as it turned out, waited by the elevator, on the ground floor. "it's Lilith."

Dean swore. "Because of course it is. Stupid question time - _our_ Lilith?"

"Why would you think that's a stupid question?"

"Cas."

"Yes, our Lilith."

Sam looked at Cas. "Upstairs? Where are Maze and the other angel?"

Cas' eyes unfocused. "Amenadiel is weakened. I'm not sure." He stopped. "Mazikeen?" he tilted his head. "I hear screaming. It sounds like…" He turned around in a circle, looking down. "A lot of profanities and obscenities. At high volume. Under the floor."

* * *

The storeroom under the bar held Maze, tied up. She'd bitten through her gag but lay in a trap painted on the floor. She had no guards.

Sam leaned over to scrub one of the edges of the painted Trap.

Dean grabbed his wrist. "What are you doing?"

"She can help."

"Demon, Sam. Whose side do you think she'll be on?"

Maze growled. "Get me out of this thing."

Sam jerked back to Cas. "You heard her from upstairs, we didn't. Are we freeing her or not?"

Cas sighed and wiped out part of the line with his foot. "Here, she's on the side of Lucifer, whom she's sworn to protect, or at least serve. Which makes it our side, if we're discussing Lilith."

Maze rolled up to her feet, holding out her bound hands. "you mind?"

Dean glared, but Sam cut the cording. He held on to her wrist a moment longer. There was power moving under her skin.

Sam frowned. "Were you attacked by Lilith or someone else? Why did she leave you alive?"

She rubbed her wrists, looking down at them. "I'm a daughter of the Lilim. Maybe she thinks she can use me. I didn't expect a demon in Trixie, but she has more demons in bodies. Patrick, the other bartender, is possessed. I don't know if it's her guard or just some lesser demon that came through with her."

"Are you alright? We need to get moving."

She flinched.

Sam had started up the stairs, leading. Cas turned and Maze leapt at him. She had a knife out, plunging after the angel. Dean slammed her into the storeroom shelving before she moved more than a foot, holding her in place.

She writhed and spit, one eye black, the other white. Her human glamour fought with itself, bleeding away at the edges of the left side of her face until only the scars were visible.

Sam produced a silvery dagger with a serrated edge. "Maze?"

Castiel reached for her forehead, fingers extended.

"Wait, can you smite her without killing her?"

Maze grinned. The black eye cleared, leaving her normal one and the white. She twisted and screamed, fighting Dean's grip. "Get this thing out of me!"

Dean held her but it was a near thing. Sam grabbed her other arm, looking across to his brother. "We have to throw her back in the circle, Sam. She's neutralized. We'll either waste time getting the...demon banished or waste time figuring out where to put the damn thing once it's free of her."

Cas nodded. "He's right. If I smite her now I'll drain some of my power. I need as much as possible for Lilith."

The angel fixed the circle. Dean held her arms and threw her back in, where she spouted more obscenities. The black eye flickered and was pushed back. Maze, _actually_ Maze breathed hard, panting. "You're right, I'd be a distraction to Lucifer. Go help him. As long as I'm stuck here, so is this bitch." She got her breath back, snarling, black eye fighting for dominance. "You weren't supposed to find out until we were in the elevator, and Castiel would be dead." She threw the dagger out of the circle where it skidded over the floor. "Take it. Lilith has the other one."

The black eye returned and she screamed.


End file.
